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Politician Tied Up In Warez Scene Piracy Investigation

Following last month’s chaos as police around Europe moved to take apart the higher levels of the so-called Warez Scene, an interesting individual has become entangled in the investigation. In Sweden, a suspicious IP address was linked to an account operated by a “top politician.” Although he has apparently denied any involvement, yesterday a court ordered his computers to be sent for examination.

Early September, police in more than a dozen countries around Europe coordinated to carry out raids against so-called Warez Scene topsites.

From our analysis we discovered that the impact of the operation was significant as it hit some of the most important sites in the European piracy Scene.

One would never expect a case as complex as this to be over in such a short time so now, more than a month on, it’s no surprise that the investigation is continuing. However, while it hardly comes as a shock to hear that server administrators and datacenter operatives have been questioned in connection with the case, an eyebrow or two will certainly be raised at the questioning of someone being described as a “top politician”.

After tracing an IP address to a physical location, on September 7th (the day of the raids) police went to a property in Eskilstuna in Sweden. At that address lived a still unnamed 32 year-old politician. After seizing seven computers, four hard drives, various USB drives and memory cards, the man was taken for interrogation.

“I told them that I am not a part of these file-sharing networks and they believed me,” the man told news portal Ekuriren.

Frederick Ingblad from the Prosecution Office in Stockholm later confirmed that after around a week the man, who is said to be a leading representative of his party, was no longer a suspect. The politician confirmed this but added that he did not know if the claims against him could return at a later date.

So how did this politician come under suspicion?

“I will not go into details of the investigation,” said Inglblad. “But to be a suspect, intent is required. The fact that people know what they’re doing,” he added.

But despite the prosecutor making it clear that the man is no longer a suspect, it does seem that the authorities are continuing with the investigation in connection with the politician’s equipment.

Following a request from the Stockholm Prosecution Office, yesterday a district court ruled that two of the politician’s computers could be sent over to the hub of the investigation in Belgium for further analysis.

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  • Anonymous

    Someone must have hacked into his wifi.

  • What is it they say

    Strikeee three… your’e OUT!

  • Anonymous

    Oh noez, someone is in the capital, stealn’ the interwebs

  • Anonymous

    Oh noez, someone is in the capital, stealn’ the interwebs.

    Becuase of course. It could NEVER be an offical /sarcasm

  • Anonymous

    But then again,

    It can never be officals /sarcasm

  • Peter

    LOL, this wouldn’t happen to be the leader of the Pirate Party xD

  • Andrew Crossley

    Another Anal Busters 5 downloader – I’ve heard it all before.

  • Anon

    What normal non pirate has 7 pcs at home ?

  • Tomas

    Even if someone got in to his wifi, they wouldn’t be able to store data on 7 computers, some external drives and some memory sticks.

    Maybe he claimed to be sleep-pirating. That way it rules out intent.

    Or maybe he is a politician so he is being let off but they are using his equipment to bring the hammer down on those in a less fortunate profession.

  • Colin

    The Tooth Fairy snuck in and used my computers at night when I was asleep ;-)

  • Paps

    Yet Another Marriage Made in Hell Between Big Business and Big Government http://lnk.co/GESWY

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  • anonymous

    no one else would be believed that they didn’t download anything on purpose or knew what they were downloading was illegal. everyone else would have been instantly charged, taken to court and received a massive fine! even if it was proven that he didn’t download anything himself and that his wifi was hacked, as he is the bill payer, he should be held responsible just like everyone else would be. however, i bet he gets away with this simply because of his political position. certainly should make the government realise how stupid the newly introduced laws are. wonder what sort of excuse will be given when he gets let off?

  • T.H.E. S.W.A.R.M.

    we are everywhere! ;)

  • Anonymous

    Well of course. That is quite normal. Seriously, whoever thinks that there is a single innocent politician on this planet, is probably coming from Mars. :D The biggest sh*t-storm is made not by the public but by the government(s), because they have the power and they like to abuse it. As for the guy, who got caught – as long as you didn’t vote for any stupid law against piracy, I’m keep my fingers crossed for you to get out of this mess. Otherwise (that is – you’ve done damage to the pirate society) go scr*w yourself. :)

  • michael

    Ohh come on. He used warez most people who know how to use a comp do. Ill give you an example.
    Matt Damon
    Ben afflect
    They both admit to using warez and downloading films you dont see america breaking their doors down and taking there computer equipment away. Its only cause he is a politician. What i want to know is when they finally (LOL) stop warez where am i going to go for my movies? What i mean is, is warner bros going to let me download a film from them as soon as its released i dont think so. Do these guys realise that they might just kill the b-movie producers off. I would never rent or buy a b-movie but ill watch it for free and then buy it if i like the film

  • Mr.Z

    Obviously he guy has serious skills.
    Being able to share files from three of those computers withot there being hard drives in them.
    Yaay for competent journalists…

  • Tokingarg

    It’s a witch hunt. Mccarthyism and all that. A threat to the free trade capitalist society. Does anyone remember the stickers that had the kid sitting at the computer and there was a USSR flag and it said piracy is communism or something like that. It is getting so ridiculous, I just can’t understand how a police force is actually investigating this and carrying out raids and search warrants. It hurts my head the tax money they are spending on this. For a file someone is downloading?? Its not a nuclear schematic, its a movie, or a song. AHHHH

  • Pirate and proud!

    His ip could have been used for this purpose and it will be shown if there is nothing on the computer because as has been noted hackers cannot store data on his hard drives!

  • Ettore

    What’s more impressive is that Sweden apparently has “top” people that are 32 years old; sounds kinda nice to me. Seems like all the “top” people in Canada are 50+.

  • Blackplan

    More proof that it’s impossible to reliably trace ‘infringers’ and that IP evidence bought to court should be- well, invalid.

  • Oh Dear

    He should just pay up to avoid a potentially expensive court case.

  • ahhhhh

    still no new films on tpb could all this be why?

  • Anonymous

    @Blackplan

    It probably was reliable and he probably was involved in the warez scene or a warez downloader. It’s just that he’s a politician so he has automatic immunity from all the silly little laws the peons are expected to follow.

    Now If he was a poor student or something, then he’d be instantly fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for this horrible “crime” and possibly imprisoned.

  • Anonymous

    @8 yea I only have 3 lol. 7 Computers? WTF of course he’s downloading

  • Anonymous

    @16
    7 computers i.e. 7 computers complete with hard drives.
    4 hard drives i.e. 4 additional external drives.
    “Yaay” for your common sense…

  • The Man With The Magic Wand

    32 and with less of a clue.
    The whole nation-state thing is so passe.
    When push comes to shove, the police/military protect the people in their government not the people they’re gov’t is supposed to represent.

  • lilars

    He should have no problem proving stupidity.After all,he is a politician.

  • FuzzyX

    Maybe this is all due to some worker at the ISP. Like “Damn they are after the release groups and request names and addresses for these IPs. I think I will send them some random names and this politician that I don’t like”

    It could happen!

  • omg

    7 computer … yeah sure he probly watch LOOOOTTSSSSS of porn thats why he need 7 computer … oohhh ohhhh wait maybe for writing letters computer are so slow these day …. cmon nobody need 7 computer for basic stuff a politician would do !

  • IMTDb

    Start -> Program -> Firefox -> Boorkmark -> 4chan

  • Anonymous

    Well. Whatever these corporate parasites and terrorists are saying as far as I am concern downloading and uploading data copyrighted or not is not a crime.

    It is them and and their government drone traitor they corrupted who are the criminals.

    Sooner rather than latter they will have to answer for their crimes in front of the people and it is going to hurt.

  • Muffin Muncher

    Derned kids gots me fired.

  • 4chan

    I hope the cops can raid houses of scene release groups and throw them behind bars. Until that happens we should all DDOS the pirate bay.

  • DDOS

    @33 “4chan”

    Suck a dik you piracy hater….stop riding the anti-piracy company’s dicks……how much are they paying you for every troll comment you leave? 10 cents?

  • BIOS HazarD

    Nothing like a story of people in power doing the same thing as everyone else. I have heard this far too many times. I bet the heads of all the anti-piracy outfits are loaded up with the latest (pirated) versions of all the coolest software.

  • franza

    What a great way to end all this crap.
    Lets figure out IP addresses of government establishments and politicians and spoof them….if we download enough material through them they’ll tie themselves up in knots hunting each other!! Lol

  • T.H.E. S.W.A.R.M.

    off topic … excuse

    Anonymous has words lol

    http://tieve.tk/about.php ;)

  • hmm
  • anon2

    why not send them all 7 computers for analysis? what’s the betting that the 2 computers that were sent belong to his kids? sounds a little suspect to me.

  • THE GREATONE

    THIS IS SOME FUNNY SHIT REAL TALK LOL KML LMAO LMFAO

  • The United Hackers Association

    Think about it like the way Warner brothers CEO’s son got caught and you have the real answer.

  • Anonymous

    You liek da stoopid pplz?
    http://leetbaka.com/tpb/calls
    Operation: Payback continues..

  • Anonymous

    Business as usual for warezstore.com – my number 1 software supplier. The best Windows software store on the planet, period.

  • Anonymous

    M. Night is a fag. Do not watch his movies

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  • Comeoncomcast (aka Andrew)

    Enigmax, yous Trololing

  • zenithmaster

    Just because this guy is a politician does not mean he is in government. In fact he could be in the opposition and thus could have been set up by the government. Just saying…

  • Anonymous

    This sounds like a scheme to get personal data and information about strategies and so on that politicians opposed to certain government initiatives.

    What better way to grab all of their electronic equipment where they’ll have been working and harvest it for anything you can use against them later than to drum up charges of file sharing?

    It’s also perfect because it shows that the current government are opposed to any form of file sharing going on, and this can happen to anyone.
    Hit two birds with one stone.

  • sup3rman

    lies name pic or not real plain and simple …download full speed ahead :)

  • Whatever

    With the given information of location, age and being an important politician wouldn’t it be easy enough for a Swede to find out the persons name ?

    Cross referencing those few 100 – 1000 politicians with location couldn’t leave much choices. Or are all of them 32 and living in that location.

    (I get the feeling it might be just a local politician)

    In the Netherlands they would say: “In the interest of the country this person cannot be arrested”
    (one needs to know Dutch politics for past years to understand this)

    @41 “The United Hackers Association”
    Good one, almost forgot about that.

  • sdf34

    Your mother does it. The girl in the shop, your local farmer, the farmers son who owns a big bussiness does it.

    Now also your favourite politician.

  • AnarchyNow

    Kill all the politicians, kill all the inbred kings and queens!

  • Anonymous

    Ubuntu 10.10 Final released

    .torrent downloads don’t work

    NOW YOU CAN MAKE AN ARTICLE

    :)

  • Le Fake

    Guilty or not, someone should really do the work of finding out his name! I wouldn’t be surprised, if it was a member of the Swedish Pirate Party — no news there. But if on the other hand it would be e.g. an MP from a more conservative party, that would be huge.

  • Anonymous

    My guess would be Bengt Fredrick Federley of the Centerpartiet.

  • Doink

    RALMFAO

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  • Ninja

    Makes sense that there are top politicians downloading and uploading. They are as human as us, the ordinary ppl that share.

    It’s quite good it’s starting to hit the big shots, maybe they’ll start resisting this madness.

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