KickassTorrents has gone offline, after founder is allegedly arrested
Popular torrent site KickassTorrents(KAT) is down.
The outage has come after Artem Vaulin, the alleged founder was arrested in Poland.
Vaulin has been 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.
receiving more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, KAT is estimated to be the 69th most frequently visited website on the Interne, operating in approximately 28 languages.
The site 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 a 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 cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.”
Federal authorities in Chicago have seized domain names associated with the website. The domains in question are kickasstorrents.com, kat.ph, kickass.to, kastatic.com, kickass.so, thekat.tv, and kat.cr.
