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RIP KickassTorrents: founder of biggest torrent site arrested
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Users of KickassTorrents may want to mourn the possible demise of the world’s most popular torrent website as it has been reported that the founder of the site was arrested in Poland by the US government on Wednesday. (Shutterstock/-)
U
sers of KickassTorrents may want to mourn the possible demise of the world’s most popular torrent website as it has been reported that the founder of the site was arrested in Poland by the US government on Wednesday.
Artem Vaulin, 30, started the torrent site back in 2008 and managed to gain a huge worldwide audience, which made the site an immediate competitor to ThePirateBay - which was raided and put out of operation in 2014.
Vaulin is charged with two separate counts of criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The US Department of Justice press release included statements from the authorities regarding his arrest.
“Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over US$1 billion of copyrighted material,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “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.”
Although arrested in Poland, Vaulin has been charged by the United States due to the fact that one of KickassTorrents’ servers is based in Chicago. The website has been down since the arrest.
