Most internet savvy people will admit to having used the popular torrent site KickassTorrents, KAT. It was used to download all sorts of files from movies to music, and more. However, all this will come to an end as the owner of the site has been arrested. The arrest took place on Wednesday.
The 30-year-old owner of the site, Artem Vaulin, was put under arrest in Ukraine on several charges. These include conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and other copyright-based charges.
A complaint that was filed in the United States District court in Chicago has estimated that the site contains materials worth over 1 billion US dollars. The United States will try to extradite Artem and the domains of the website will be confiscated.
Vaulin, who also goes by the name ‘tirm’, is suspected to be the creator of the website in 2008. He is said to have been considerably responsible for the funding of KAT. Investigations reveal several servers that potentially could be traced back to KAT.
One of these is in Chicago and it is for this reason that the complaint was filed there. There are also other allegations were Vaulin is thought to be the brain behind Cryptoneat, a company which is thought to be used in the hiding of KAT’s activities.
In a press release, General Leslie Caldwell who is the Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice stated: “Trying to dodge law enforcement, the owner of KAT used servers spread all over the world and switched domains every time there was a seizure of domains or a lawsuit. But his apprehension is an indication that criminals can run but they can’t hide for long.”
The incident represents a major hit for those that rely on torrents since Kickasstorrents was the biggest torrent site on the web, bigger than the Pirate Bay. It is also the 69th most popular site online and gets over 50 million visitors every month.
