KickassTorrents owner arrested by FBI, domains seized

Desmond

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
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.

*torrentfreak.com/images/katcomplaint.png

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.
Click to expand...

Source: Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains, Arrest Owner - TorrentFrea
 
Akira

Akira

Augmented Nerd
God f--ing dammit. First TPB, now this. With the new DRM, it was harder than ever to crack games. And now KAT, the last bastion of torrents, has fallen. Mainstream piracy is dead.
 
Last edited:
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
This is very bad.
It will be like this, they close one site, 2-3 more site will come up. They can't stop it like Hitler. They should educate people first.
 
OP
Desmond

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
From what I see. The feds only try to stop whichever is the most popular torrent site. First they used to target TPB, but now KAT is more popular than TPB, so they went after it. I think the lesser or private trackers are safe, for now.
 
Cyberghost

Cyberghost

Federal Agent Area 51
Staff member
So Apple refuses to unlock a terrorist's phone but gladly gave away the icloud details of the owner of kickass torrents to aid his arrest :dead_NF:
 
Zangetsu

Zangetsu

I am the master of my Fate.
many torrent sites have gone down in the past (btjunkie etc) and now Kickass..which is mostly people use.
 
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
Zangetsu said:
many torrent sites have gone down in the past (btjunkie etc) and now Kickass..which is mostly people use.
Click to expand...
There are many clone sites still on for kat.cr, you can't log in some of them and some users still uploading new torrents to that clone sites.
 
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
Desmond David said:
From what I see. The feds only try to stop whichever is the most popular torrent site. First they used to target TPB, but now KAT is more popular than TPB, so they went after it. I think the lesser or private trackers are safe, for now.
Click to expand...
But kat.cr was really good torrents site. Points members moderators tips tricks help forum blog everything was there. Now it's like emptiness. Those who know about KickAss, they definitely know about "Extra"..
 
dissel

dissel

Cyborg Agent
Very Sad News Indeed - Kick was very organized with ratings and file details - Properly Categorized content as well resolution (for video) to choose / poster / Album Art. :dead_NF: :sick_NF:
 
OP
Desmond

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
Until the feds seize the server itself, KAT won't truly be dead. I think they are trying to block the proxies one at a time.

But I will probably miss KAT more than TPB though.
 
chimera201

chimera201

Wise Old Owl
alienempire said:
So Apple refuses to unlock a terrorist's phone but gladly gave away the icloud details of the owner of kickass torrents to aid his arrest :dead_NF:
Click to expand...

Terrorist is not a threat to Apple's profit margins but kickass is a threat to it's profit margin unless the terrorist attacks Apple HQ.
 
OP
Desmond

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
chimera201 said:
Terrorist is not a threat to Apple's profit margins but kickass is a threat to it's profit margin unless the terrorist attacks Apple HQ.
Click to expand...

Good point. Apple cares about privacy until it affects their business. But same could be said about a lot of companies.
 
Akira

Akira

Augmented Nerd
It's not just the torrents, or the s/l ratio they had. KAT was unique among all its torrent brethren.

People often said "The community makes kat", and I can agree, just the amount of people I talked to about everything and anything, the people who we could rely to make jokes or to be there to cheer you up. It was amazing. It's kinda sad because although I have found a few of them here-there are people who I talked to daily and have no way to contact them now. It was a great community that no torrenting website could ever live up to. Idk this might have sounded cheesy but it's the truth.
We might bring back other domains and cache servers, but there is no bringing back that brotherhood.

Anyway, this is a good article on chances of a comeback: Can KickassTorrents Make a Comeback? - TorrentFrea
Finally, and crucially, the investigators issued a warrant directed at the Canadian webhost of KickassTorrents. This was one of the biggest scores as it provided them with full copies of KAT’s hard drives, including the email server.

“I observed […] that they were all running the same Linux Gentoo operating system, and that they contained files with user information, SSH access logs, and other information, including a file titled ‘passwd’ located in the ‘etc’ directory,” the HSI agent writes.

“I also located numerous files associated with KAT, including directories and logs associated to their name servers, emails and other files,” he adds.

Considering all the information U.S. law enforcement has in its possession, it’s doubtful that KAT will resume its old operation anytime soon.

Technically it won’t be hard to orchestrate a Pirate Bay-style comeback, as there are probably some backups available. However, now that the site has been heavily compromised and an ongoing criminal investigation is underway, it would be a risky endeavor.

Similarly, uploaders and users may also worry about what information the authorities have in their possession. The complaint cites private messages that were sent through KAT, suggesting that the authorities have access to a significant amount of data.

While regular users are unlikely to be targeted, the information may provide useful for future investigations into large-scale uploaders. More clarity on this, the site’s future, and what it means for the torrent ecosystem, is expected to become evident when the dust settles.
Click to expand...
 
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
Akira said:
It's not just the torrents, or the s/l ratio they had. KAT was unique among all its torrent brethren.

People often said "The community makes kat", and I can agree, just the amount of people I talked to about everything and anything, the people who we could rely to make jokes or to be there to cheer you up. It was amazing. It's kinda sad because although I have found a few of them here-there are people who I talked to daily and have no way to contact them now. It was a great community that no torrenting website could ever live up to. Idk this might have sounded cheesy but it's the truth.
We might bring back other domains and cache servers, but there is no bringing back that brotherhood.

Anyway, this is a good article on chances of a comeback: Can KickassTorrents Make a Comeback? - TorrentFrea
Click to expand...
Exactly, brotherhood... It was more than just a torrent site.. I am going to miss my all friends and free support for servers and encoding stuff..
It was like Facebook for torrents..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom