How Apple and Facebook Helped US to Arrest Kickass Torrents’ Owner

[Batu69]

Kickass Torrents’ owner Artem Vaulin has been arrested but the way Apple, Facebook and Coinbase helped the US authorities to track Vaulin back to Europe sounds like some script from a James Bond movie!

 

Kickass Torrents fans should already know that its 30-year-old alleged owner, Artem Vaulting,  has been arrested in Poland by the US authorities on suspicions of reproducing and distributing copyrighted content worth $1 billion. Vaulin, who is a Ukranian national was supposedly running Kickass Torrents platform behind the scene for last 8years leaving no trace marks whatsoever. 

 

However, there are some more details about his arrest that are coming to the fore and they are shocking. They include both tech giant Apple Inc. and social media giant Facebook. It all started when an undercover agent from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disguising as an advertiser contacted Kickass Torrents to put an advert on the site, after a while the agent was successful in placing an ad on the site allowing him to have access to a Latvia-based bank account linked with the Kickass website.

 

Upon further investigations, the US authorities discovered an email address that was linked to the Kickass Torrents domain plus its social media accounts including Mark Zuckerberg’s very own Facebook. Later on, Apple provided complete records of Vaulin’s purchase activities on iTunes store from an email hosting on @me.com. 

Quote

Records provided by Apple showed that [email protected] conducted an iTunes transaction using IP Address 109.86.226.203 on or about July 31, 2015. The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook Account. Then, on or about December 9, 2015, [email protected] used IP Address 78.108.181.81 to conduct another iTunes transaction. The same IP Address was logged as accessing the KAT Facebook Account on or about December 4, 2015.

 

The records provided by Apple showed that someone made a legal purchase from iTunes using the same email address using the same IP address that was also being used to login on to Facebook in order to handle Kickass Torrents’ official Facebook page. But, that’s not all, the authorities also tracked Bitcoin donation process of KAT which was linked to Coinbase, a Bitcoin exchange company headquartered in San Francisco, California.

 

The records provided by Coinbase revealed further information about Vaulin such as:

Quote

Records received from the bitcoin exchange company Coinbase revealed that the KAT Bitcoin Donation Address sent bitcoins it received to a user’s account maintained at Coinbase. This account was identified as belonging to Artem Vaulin located in Kharkov, Ukraine, with a backup email address of [email protected].

 

The records returned by Facebook also provided the IP logins to the KAT Facebook Account since on or about October 21, 2014. Notably, IP address 78.108.178.77 accessed the KAT Facebook Account about a dozen times in September and October 2015. This same IP Address was used to login to Vaulin’s Coinbase account 47 times between or on about January 28, 2014, through to on or about November 13, 2014.

 

After receiving further information from different sources the US authorities were able to arrest the man behind the mask Artem Vaulin in Poland. 

 

For the time being several other Kickass Torrents domains are popping up online but it’s a matter of  time before authorities shut them down as well. Currently, KAT fans have ThePirateBay.org to enjoy and in case you want to read the 50-page criminal complaint on Vaulin’s arrest filed by the U.S Attorney’s Office click here.

 

Article source

[knowledge-Spammer]

 

[luisam]

After you follow this great investigative work by FBI, NSA, Apple iTunes, the Polish Connection etc. you wonder why no RANSOMWARE cybercriminals have been uncovered and arrested around the world

[DogDays]

Batu69,

   Thank U again and again for keeping us
current on what's happening in cyberspace.

(My thoughts) Its ok for the likes of apple
& Zuckerberg to steal and data mine are
personal infomation and there heroes.Personally
I've never used Torrents but I feel if they
used 1/2 the resources investigating these
heroes they'd be sharing a cell with  Vaulin.

 

Thats just My opinion I could be wrong...    

luisam,

    Good Point totally agree

[Jogs]

If some people put lots of pirated content on apple phones, will apple be ever charged like this?????
 

[Cypher3927]

3 hours ago, luisam said:

After you follow this great investigative work by FBI, NSA, Apple iTunes, the Polish Connection etc. you wonder why no RANSOMWARE cybercriminals have been uncovered and arrested around the world

It's just a lot more difficult to catch the gangs behind the ransomware families. It might take some real work and you know how much people hate work. 

[SPECTRUM]

enough reasons to stop using Facebook and Apple products.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, SPECTRUM said:

enough reasons to stop using Facebook and Apple products.

By law any public transactions done in the USA  they have to hand them over if  they have a warrant , You think any company in the USA is going to risk there butt for you ?  All they done was follow the laws of the land . Artem Vaulting was the idiot  who  used these services even though he was putting millions in the bank from running KAT . Most criminals  who live inside the USA are not this careless , Many people who dont do nothing  but download  protect themselves  better than him. The reason apple and facebook  had anything  that matched was when he 1st took over kat he used gmail with his real name and ip on kat and the feds knew who he was already , they just needed more proof .he never ever used a vpn so the ips  match . he was a  idiot. 

 

You could say this be very a good reason to never join P2P sites as well because you dont if  who runs them are a fool like him . He put everyone in danger  because he was careless .

 

I have no pity  for people who get rich off piracy , They know  what they was getting into . But people who are careless are just idiots in my book and asking to get busted.

 

I dont go on Facebook since many years ago  and i never owned or used a  apple OS or use there services  . I'm not rich like he was, were he could buy everything he wanted ether . But he really could not afford  to be doing that in his shoes ether now could he?  He should  of went to the shops and paid cash for what he wanted or lest get someone else to buy it online for him  , But he didn't.

 

But his biggest  mistake was to visit Poland, they have a extradition treaty with the USA they was waiting on him at the airport . In his country  if he would of  stayed there he still be a free man.  A lot people live in countries  were they can  but he didn't.. That's the reason Artem Vaulting was careless and thought he never get caught was because in the Ukraine they could not touch him. Same thing happen too one the founders of TPB  he visited somewhere with extradition treaty with Sweden  and got napped but he had a good reason someone needed to go to the hospital  That's the way most gets caught is from traveling .The moral to this story is just stay home, if you're a P2P kingpin  from eastern Europe  .

[straycat19]

5 hours ago, steven36 said:

By law any public transactions done in the USA  they have to hand them over if  they have a warrant , You think any company in the USA is going to risk there butt for you ?  All they done was follow the laws of the land .

 

That's all true but as far as Apple is concerned they have an ulterior motive, money.  The sharing of music cuts into their billion dollar industry, and though KAT only produced 23.2 million dollars a year that was theoretically on money taken out of Apple's pocket.  Facebook had no financial loss and was just obeying the law.  Why any idiot would have an illegal server in the U.S. and use a U.S. based financial institution (Coinbase) and think he was going to get away with it is beyond me.

 

As far as his location goes, the U.S. could have gotten him from the Ukraine.  It wouldn't have been the first time someone was 'spirited' out of the Ukraine (or any other Eastern European country).  The government there has its own agenda also and likes to have its palm greased occasionally. 

[steven36]

10 hours ago, straycat19 said:

 

That's all true but as far as Apple is concerned they have an ulterior motive, money.  The sharing of music cuts into their billion dollar industry, and though KAT only produced 23.2 million dollars a year that was theoretically on money taken out of Apple's pocket.  Facebook had no financial loss and was just obeying the law.  Why any idiot would have an illegal server in the U.S. and use a U.S. based financial institution (Coinbase) and think he was going to get away with it is beyond me.

 

As far as his location goes, the U.S. could have gotten him from the Ukraine.  It wouldn't have been the first time someone was 'spirited' out of the Ukraine (or any other Eastern European country).  The government there has its own agenda also and likes to have its palm greased occasionally. 

There's no proof Apple done this because of Itunes music so   that's  just speculation   because shooting down  Kat  want even put a dent  in Itunes music  piracy .Itunes music was very little of what that site shared over all. Itunes  is only apple music they had loads of other Music and movies not related to apple   . VKontakte witch is not p2p by far the biggest distributor pirated  Itunes music  and they have signed  a deal  with the Music Industry now .If there were no Itunes leaks people would just go back to ripping Fllacs witch is better than apples crap and mp3s for less storage .The Music industry knows there fighting a losing battle that's why they made free streaming . They  got that guy up for movies not for  music .

 

And if  the rest of what you said was so they would done had him long ago , They didn't go in and get him they waited on him to go somewhere that had a extradition treaty with the USA  . If they could just pay people off anywhere  like you say.., they would have Snowden and everyone on there list  . But  that's not how it works in the real world .They even had to send in the military to take out many because they could not even get them. peacefully .And most countries  that dont have a  extradition treaty with  the USA want even hand over a foreigner  let alone someone from there own country .

 

Quote

Ukraine and the United States do not have an extradition treaty.  Foreigners who commit serious crimes in Ukraine are, as a rule, tried and sentenced in Ukraine.

 

Now if you was from a foreign country and not from the Ukraine you done a crime there .The only hopes would be that  someone will pay them off to have you sent back .But if you dont have no one looking out for you be stuck there tell there done with you. .But as far there own citizens they only have to obey Ukrainian law there not subject to USA law. .

 

Only the USA got lucky is all that this guy went to Poland.  In another case the USA  has been after Ukrainian Billionaire Dmytro Firtash for along time when he got caught in Austria , they would not extradite him to the USA  and they let him lose and still a free man today. Not even all countries  that have a extradition treaty play nice with the USA like Poland does.