The alleged founder of the world’s biggest file-sharing site was arrested in Poland on Wednesday, and hot with criminal charged by the United States. Artem Vaulin, 30, has been accused of distributing over $1 billion (approximately Rs 6, 750 crore) worth of illegal content and conspiracy to launder money.
The US is seeking to extradite Vaulin.
His website attracted more than 50 million users per month. His website, Kickass Torrents had taken over other sites such as PirateBay over the last few years, and had become the biggest source of pirated software. Kat’s servers and other mirrors and proxies have been taken down since.
Kickass Torrent’s net-worth has been estimated at more than $54 million, with an annual advertising revenue of up to $25 million. Due to prior seizures, the website has moved its domain several times, and has been ordered block by Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and Malaysia.
Vaulin was busted after federal agents posed as prospective advertisers on his website. He was linked to KAT after agents identified that the IP addresses he used to make Apple iTunes purchases were the same one he used to log into the Facebook page of his website.
If convicted, Vaulin could spend five years behind bars over copyright infringement, or 20 years for the money-laundering charge, or both.
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