On Wednesday, Artem Vaulin, the founder of Kickass Torrents (KAT), was arrested for his BitTorrent distribution operation.
Vaulin was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. The 30-year-old Ukrainian was arrested in Poland after U.S. investigators tracked him through the Kickass Torrents Facebook fan page.
Also, after undercover agents purchased advertising space on KAT in March 2016, the site’s annual ad revenue is estimated to be over $16 million per year. Here is what the Department of Justice had to say regarding the case:
“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.”
H/T ARS Technica, Gizmodo