Feds Seize KickassTorrents, Arrest Owner

[residentsleep]

https://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-kic ... er-160720/

The U.S. Government has arrested the alleged owner of KickassTorrents, the world's largest torrent site. The 30-year-old Ukrainian was arrested in Poland today and is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. In addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names.

With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) has become the most-used torrent site on the Internet, beating even The Pirate Bay.

Today, however, the site has run into a significant roadblock after U.S. authorities announced the arrest of the site’s alleged owner.

The 30-year-old Artem Vaulin, from Ukraine, was arrested today in Poland from where the United States has requested his extradition.

In a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the owner is charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.



The complaint further reveals that the feds posed as an advertiser, which revealed a bank account associated with the site.

It also shows that Apple handed over personal details of Vaulin after the investigator cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with an IP-address that was used to login to KAT’s Facebook account.

“Records provided by Apple showed that tirm@me.com 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,” the complaint reads.

In addition to the arrest in Poland, the court also granted the seizure of a bank account associated with KickassTorrents, as well as several of the site’s domain names.

Commenting on the announcement, Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said that KickassTorrents helped to distribute over $1 billion in pirated files.

“Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials.”

“In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.”

KAT’s .com and .tv domains are expected to be seized soon by Verisign. For the main Kat.cr domain and several others, seizure warrants will be sent to the respective authorities under the MLAT treaty.

At the time of writing the main domain name Kat.cr has trouble loading, but various proxies still appear to work. KAT’s status page doesn’t list any issues, but we assume that this will be updated shortly.

TorrentFreak has reached out to the KAT team for a comment on the news and what it means for the site’s future, but we have yet to hear back.

[Pre-K]

never used torrents

[Silvernblackoak]

Heard they got a mirror type site already up sucked cuz solar movies went down with kat

[pressureworld]

It was one helll of a site very disappointed to see it take a fall.

[J-Don]

Damn almost feels like they took down Silk Road

[Niko]

The fuck, damn

KAT > TPB

Its a sad day.

[Desperado]

Rutracker ftw

[Niko]

Rutracker ftw

If only I could read Russian :/

[Desperado]

Rutracker ftw

If only I could read Russian :/

Run it thru a translator. They got everything on there even all the audio plugins

[Niko]

Rutracker ftw

If only I could read Russian :/

Run it thru a translator. They got everything on there even all the audio plugins

Damn son, where'd you find this.

They got a shit ton of stuff

Gonna go on a spree manana fo sho.

[Desperado]

If only I could read Russian :/

Run it thru a translator. They got everything on there even all the audio plugins

Damn son, where'd you find this.

They got a shit ton of stuff

Gonna go on a spree manana fo sho.

Auto tune live

[Mixerr]

Fuck torrents tho.

[TedTeazy]

Add it to the list of DEATH: Napster, Mega-Upload, Frostwire, Limewire..... RIP WE WILL MISS YOU KAT

[wghisd]

there is no official mirror for KAT, so stay away from any site claiming to be one. be careful seeding with torrents. that's how people get caught. if you're going to fuck with torrents you need to be on torrentfreak. they pretty much have all the latest on shutdowns.

[Europe Savage]

Fucking Ukrainians