Owner of the world’s 2nd most popular torrent website KickassTorrents arrested in Poland

TThe world’s second most popular torrent website, Kickasstorrents, went offline after reports of alleged owner of a Kickass admin being arrested surfaced. The man allegedly presumed to be behind the world’s largest illegal torrent download site, KickassTorrents also known as KAT has been arrested in Poland. The Polish police arrested the 30-year-old Ukrainian at the request of the U.S. government and also seized funds from a Latvian bank account. In addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names such as kickasstorrents.com, kastatic.com,

The Polish police arrested the 30-year-old Ukrainian at the request of the U.S. government and also seized funds from a Latvian bank account. Kickasstorrents was further dealth a death blow when a federal court in Chicago ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names such as kickasstorrents.com, kastatic.com, thekat.tv, kat.cr, kickass.to, kat.ph and kickass.cr.

Kat.cr had become the most-used torrent site after The Pirate Bay, with millions of unique visitors per day. However, the site has run into an important roadblock after U.S. authorities announced the arrest of the site’s alleged owner. According to a Department of Justice press release, Artem Vaulin, of Ukraine was arrested on Wednesday in Poland. The DOJ will shortly seek his extradition to the United States.

The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago notes that KAT receives more than 50 million unique monthly visitors and is estimated to be the 69th most frequently visited website on the Internet. The complaint also states KAT operates in approximately 28 languages, has a net worth of more than $54 million, and generates an estimated $12.5 million to $22.3 million in annual advertising revenue.

“Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in the statement. “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 cyber criminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.”

Source: Tecworn