Swedish Pirates Caught through Money Trail
http://sp-security.blogspot.com/2017/04/swedish-pirates-caught-through-money.html
Swefilmer
alleged operators finally showed up in court – the landmark trial
launched, accusing them of running a popular unauthorized streaming
platform. The individuals, 26 and 22 years old, also stand accused of
generating $1.5m in advertising and donations.
Swefilmer
was founded 5 years ago and quickly grew to become the most popular
movie and TV show streaming service in the country: together with fellow
streaming website Dreamfilm, it accounted for a quarter of all web TV
viewing in Sweden. One of the defendants is a local man Ola Johansson,
who was raided by the police in 2015 under suspicion of being involved
in running Swefilmer. A year ago, a Turkish national was arrested in
Germany on a secret European arrest warrant. Now the case finally got
underway.
The site operators are accused of the illegal distribution of 1,400 movies, the copyrights to which belong to a dozen studios, such as Warner, Disney and Fox. At least 10 of the tested titles had been made available online prior to their DVD release. The plaintiffs claim that Swefilmer generated a fortune from advertising, while the copyright holders were not paid a dime. They accuse the site operators of copyright infringement and money laundering.
Apparently, the defendants were tracked down from traces left online, including IP address evidence and money trails from advertising revenues and donations. First of all, the police managed to trace IP addresses used to operate the infringing site back to Turkey, and then sought assistance from Turkish authorities. Once they obtained the name of the older site operator, his identity could be linked with advertising revenue generated by the website.
At the same time, the investigator targeted Swefilmer’s PayPal account used to receive donations and payments for VIP memberships through cooperation with the payment processor, which revealed the email and bank account details connected to the account name specified in the receipt from a donation. Those were linked to the 26-year-old. It was found that Swefilmer received its first payment in 2013 and its last in 2015, and the earned money (about $1.5 million) was deposited in a bank account operated by the 26-year-old by a Stockholm-based ad company, whose CEO is not suspected of crimes by the court.
In the meantime, the second defendant, 22 years old, from Sweden, only knew another criminal through chat and believed he was from Russia. As a minor player, he is required to pay back about $4,000, which he allegedly earned from Swefilmer. The older man is charged with a $1.5m bill.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
Posted by:SaM
The site operators are accused of the illegal distribution of 1,400 movies, the copyrights to which belong to a dozen studios, such as Warner, Disney and Fox. At least 10 of the tested titles had been made available online prior to their DVD release. The plaintiffs claim that Swefilmer generated a fortune from advertising, while the copyright holders were not paid a dime. They accuse the site operators of copyright infringement and money laundering.
Apparently, the defendants were tracked down from traces left online, including IP address evidence and money trails from advertising revenues and donations. First of all, the police managed to trace IP addresses used to operate the infringing site back to Turkey, and then sought assistance from Turkish authorities. Once they obtained the name of the older site operator, his identity could be linked with advertising revenue generated by the website.
At the same time, the investigator targeted Swefilmer’s PayPal account used to receive donations and payments for VIP memberships through cooperation with the payment processor, which revealed the email and bank account details connected to the account name specified in the receipt from a donation. Those were linked to the 26-year-old. It was found that Swefilmer received its first payment in 2013 and its last in 2015, and the earned money (about $1.5 million) was deposited in a bank account operated by the 26-year-old by a Stockholm-based ad company, whose CEO is not suspected of crimes by the court.
In the meantime, the second defendant, 22 years old, from Sweden, only knew another criminal through chat and believed he was from Russia. As a minor player, he is required to pay back about $4,000, which he allegedly earned from Swefilmer. The older man is charged with a $1.5m bill.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
Posted by:SaM
