Their complaint centered on a pair of movie-focused release groups known as CRUCiAL and iNSPiRED. Following their creations in 2008 and 2006 respectively, GVU claimed that together the groups had released as many as 2,600 DVD and Blu-ray ripped movies online, many of them in advance of their street dates.

The GVU now say their investigation has borne fruit, with the initiation late last month of an international police operation against the leaders of the groups.

Under the control of police headquarters in Frankfurt, on November 29th raids were carried out against several private homes in Germany and computer datacenters in Switzerland and Hungary.

GVU said that pinning the groups’ servers down had proven problematic, since they had been supplied through resellers and rented under false names. Nevertheless, a 180TB Swiss server and a 30TB Hungarian server were both seized along with various computers and hard drives from locations in Germany.

According to the GVU complaint, CRUCiAL were responsible for running the server and obtaining source material from, among other places, two other Scene groups based in the United States.

Back home in Germany, the group was affiliated with 10 other groups who released the same movies online in different file formats.

The GVU investigation is said to have concluded that CRUCiAL were the source of the first DVD-quality Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince leak which had been ripped from a forensically-watermarked copy intended for Scandinavia. GVU say the DVD was physically stolen from an Austrian pressing plant at the behest of CRUCiAL’s leader. Copies of the movie then reportedly turned up on Kino.to, the now-defunct streaming movie portal raided earlier this year.

According to Scene records, both groups stopped releasing in an official capacity in 2010, iNSPiRED in May, CRUCiAL in September, with the former handing the ‘rights’ to their TV show releases to a pair of other groups. Both these new groups made their latest releases just today.

Source: International Police Operation Targets Movie Piracy Release Groups

Following a lengthy investigation by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, during the last 48 hours Swedish police acted on their evidence and moved in on at least one ‘topsite’.

The site, which supposedly carried between 200 and 250 terabytes of media, was known as ‘Devil’. During the raids police seized a dozen servers and other computers and detained one person.

The individual, who is believed to have been handed over to Antipiratbyrån for questioning, is accused of being the operator of ‘Devil’. He is blamed for the distribution of “tens of thousands” of mainly Hollywood movies.

In what appeared to be a security response to news of the bust, other topsites started going down in Sweden and at least one other major European country.

Elements of two other topsites with links to ‘Devil’ known as Secu and Tomte (250 terabytes combined) have also been affected but so as not to compromise our sources, we will refrain from going into further detail as to why at this stage.

Suffice to say that some fairly important movie release groups (particularly Swedish ones) were connected to the sites and their activities will have been disrupted, at least temporarily.

Within the Scene the recriminations have begun, with fingers pointed at individuals and groups who are suspected of having caused the security lapse which led to the busts. Not unexpectedly, the accusations appear to be focused on Scene members who are also connected with P2P sharing groups, a frowned upon activity but one that is nevertheless widespread.

Source: Police Raid ‘Devil’ Warez Piracy Topsite

Every day, millions of people download the latest blockbusters through file-sharing applications, and the majority of those come from so-called Scene groups. Despite the major impact the Scene has on modern day society, very little is known about the people who are part of it. After today, we might know a tiny bit more.

TorrentFreak had the chance to ask a few questions to a former member of a well-known Scene group. Our source (let’s call him SC) is a self-proclaimed expert at busting the watermaking techniques of the MPAA, and between 2003 and 2009 he was a member and supplier of a group responsible for hundreds of pirated movie releases online.

We got in contact with the former Scene member through Reddit, where he has been answering many questions about his ‘profession’ this week. As always, the true identity of SC will remain a mystery, but judging from the answers that were given and the knowledge the person has we can be fairly certain that he is indeed who he claims to be.

In his introduction, SC says that during his time in the Scene six close associates got arrested, 2 served prison time, 2 became informants and one killed himself. The latter case refers to Geremi Adam aka maVen, one of the best known movie pirates who died of a morphine overdose after he was released from prison.

Below, you can read the Q and A session we had with SC, which tells us a bit more about the Scene and the motivations and connections of the people in it. Those who want to ask something of their own, or who want to read more questions that were answered by SC, can do so on Reddit.

TF: Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into the movie piracy world?

SC: I got into movie piracy after being an avid downloader. I distinctly remember in fact, getting a hold of my first movie over a 4 day leech on a 56k line. It was wicked. I loved it, and quickly realized there was some sort of underground in control of all of this. It piqued my interest, and I was determined to get to the top of it. Seemed a little far fetched at the time, and I cant really fathom still how far it snowballed, but its pretty cool none-the-less.”

TF: You mentioned your connection to maVen, can you say anything about other groups you’ve worked with?

SC: I dont think it’s fair on my part to say to be honest. It would be foolish and unnecessary – but lets just say I worked with most during my time. Any that dealt with theater rips/prints at least. I mentioned maVen because the police would have a hard time getting information from a dead individual.

TF: What was the main motivation for you to join the movie piracy Scene? What about the others?

SC: Pride and ego was my main motivation. Most sceners are male, between 18-30, generally white and well educated. Most are middle/upper middle class, students and young professionals.. Pride and Ego fuels almost 90% of their motivations. You are able to achieve a level of status online that you probably could never in the real world; you are respected and feared, and the mystique of it all helps. Sounds foolish now; but at the time it didnt seem so.

TF: Over the years, have you noticed any significant changes in how groups and suppliers operate?

SC: Massive significant changes. At some point maybe 10 years ago, I knew of major groups who had public IRC channels! at a time all of this required some technical wizardy, and you had to be fairly knowledgeable in order to do it. As time went on, with the advances of technology, this changed, bringing it to a much wider audience base, and also with newer distro methods (Torrents, etc). Laws have changed pretty dramatically worldwide also.

TF: Did the increased monitoring and safety measures in theaters change anything? A delay in release time for CAMs perhaps?

SC: I would say the changing technologies and the learning curve are more to do with any delays. Some releases can take far more time then others.

TF: Could you tell a bit more about the process that’s involved from the theater to a pre-ready release?

SC: A cammer will go to a theater and retrieve a print. Ideally, he is wanting to see the whole frame of the film – cropping can be done afterwards. Ideally he is sitting centered, mid level/back level, with an unobstructed view. Another very important factor is the camera doesnt move – ideally sitting stationary 100% of the release.

The next process is removing the watermarks. Ideally this is done by several individuals looking over the print, tagging the dots, and checking with each other. After a few good guys look it over you can be pretty sure you got most of them.

Once the final release is encoded, the watermarks are removed, the audio is done, its packed/checked and spread to affiliates. Some short time later, its pre’d, and released upon the world.

TF: What kind of precautionary measures did you take so you never got caught?

SC: Secrets to not getting caught… those might possibly get me caught! Lets just say, seeing the bigger picture, watching your tongue and understanding the way people are connected helps dramatically.

TF: You say that you were both a supplier to, and a member of, a group. Is this common?

SC: Yes. Very Common. Since its quite possible you will never meet members, you are all colluding to commit crimes together. A great way to ‘keep it in the family’ is to essentially make the guy next to you just as guilty. In this case I’ve seen members take on many many roles, it also helps with the breakdown of the group and the overall structure. I would say its common among the top echelon.

TF: Have you seen any changes in the Scene in recent years?

SC: The scene has changed dramatically since I first entered it. There was a time saying the wrong thing would immediately make you lose your access and become an outcast; if you were not contributing, you were a nobody. this mentality has changed dramatically; its not so hush hush, or technically proficient as it has been in past years. The ease of it all has also made it a more risky hobby.

TF: Are there any commercial interests linked to groups that you’ve been connected to or heard from?

SC: Yes. Absolutely. Money and those accusations have gone on for years. I can attest with certainty that I know groups that have sold – but to sit here and spout their names endangers them and is just slander. Its unecessary for me to publically shame them all. Except maVen. He’s no longer here; and his motivation was money almost 100% of the time.

TF: What do you think the future holds for movie release groups?

SC: Nothing good. Cam/telesync/high quality theater rips are dead pretty much. Retail DVD video is impossible to track; that shit will be here forever.

Last year, SC decided to leave the Scene he had been part of for such a long time. We did of course ask him why he made this decision, but SC told us that it was “the eternal question.”

SC continued his life outside the Scene and doesn’t contact his former group members and associates anymore, although they are not out of sight completely.

“I can find them and they can find me,” SC said. “But I think everyone prefers a bit of an arm’s length approach at some point.”

Source: Former Movie Piracy Scene Member Speaks Out

A day later and using several Scene sources, we tried to piece together what had happened and which sites had been affected. Certain rumors that we were unable to confirm at the time, such as those suggesting that a UK topsite had been busted, appear to have been unfounded. It seems that servers did go down at times, but merely coincidentally or as a precaution.

While it’s proven immensely difficult to validate many of the tips we’ve received (as we’ve said before, reporting on The Scene is somewhat of a black art), some have proven very interesting. Right now we would like to share one in particular with you, which not only describes in part how the Scene is structured but also goes some way to illustrating just how important these raids were.

Structure – How the Scene selects which sites are the best in the world

• The Scene consists of 8 ranked trading groups. The members of these groups meet online every few months and take a vote on which sites should be considered to be the best in the world. Speed, routing, support on races, release group affiliates and user databases are taken into account
• A a total of 27 sites leading sites are chosen which are now deemed ‘globally ranked’

How the globally ranked sites are organized

• The ranking system is ordered like a pyramid, with the cream at the top
• 2 sites are ranked 3.0 (top of the pyramid), 3 sites are ranked 2.5, 4 sites are ranked 2.0, 5 sites are ranked 1.5, 6 sites are ranked 1.0 and 7 sites are ranked 0.5
• Total sites globally ranked: 27

Traders

Traders are Scene members who move files around the 27 globally ranked sites and others in the Scene. They are motivated to do so by winning points. In order for a trader to become ‘globally ranked’ he or she needs to be in the top 20 uploaders overall. Their point rewards for positioning in this list work as follows:

Deciding the best traders in the world

All points accrued are placed in a global ranking chart for measuring which trader is the best each week. The winner is naturally the one with the most points

The European Scene raids and how this affects trading and structure

We mentioned several topsites in our earlier article which were busted or otherwise affected by the raids. At the time we redacted some site names to keep our sources happy but we are now able to publish most of them. Group affiliates are reported but unconfirmed.

BAR

Confirmed as busted, BAR was one of the top two sites in the Scene with a ranking of 3.0. As we’ve seen from the explanation above, it’s impossible for a site to be more important than this.

Groups affils: MARVEL, EPTiSO, RELOADED, Clue, ESPiSE, DASH, Metis, REV0, CBGB, XII, Heirloom

LOST

A highly respected 2.5 site which was ranked 3.0 for a long time. One of the five most important sites in the Scene. Without being overly specific, police managed to obtain certain hardware connected to the site but completely missed other more crucial elements. Site staff have made announcements which stated that tight security and encryption on the site meant that users should be fine.

Group affils: Refined, FQM, CiNEFiLE, SPARE, Hatred, SUBMERGE, Felon, ALLIANCE, Pellucida, Sinners, MACRO

DLR

DLR is one of the sites we mentioned but not by name in our earlier article. DLR is/was ranked as 2.5, meaning that along with LOST it is one of the top 5 most important sites in the Scene. While the ISP where DLR was hosted was visited by the police, our sources believe that DLR’s server was missed and may not even have been the prime target. As of last week, no announcement had been made about the site’s future.

SC

SC is proving a very difficult site to find information on. Ranked as 2.0 and therefore one of the nine most important in the Scene, the site had some very high profile affiliate groups. The site appears to have been small, but particularly elite.

Group affils: Hubris, RELOADED, Jumanji, MPTDVD, Magnitude, DAGGER, ETHOS, Clue, AAOCG

Still unamed site, Italy

We mentioned another European site in our earlier article as being permanently down, and we can now reveal that site was in Italy. Although we are told it is very important, we have been unable to find out its ranking in order to show its significance.

Conclusion

While there is much talk of the piracy pyramid (in its wider sense, with the Scene at the top and general file sharing and BitTorrent-type activities providing the broad base) the Scene also has a pyramid structure too, at least in terms of kudos. As can be seen by the above, these raids clearly hit some very important sites at the top of that pyramid.

An interesting piece of information came out during the last few days. According to authorities speaking on the matter this week, they have not infiltrated the Scene themselves, but have instead recruited some high-level trusted informers in the Scene. There can be little doubt that on some level at least, these claims must be true. Finding and ejecting those individuals will be a top priority for the Scene.

While it’s too early to say how things might recover in the longer term, one thing is certain. Raids like this in the past have disrupted but never stopped the Scene. And, as we highlighted in our earlier article, P2P release groups are starting to show their significance.

One thing is for sure. Virtually all movies, music, software and games will continue to be pirated and no one will have any problem at all putting their hands on them. To most on the Internet, nothing will have changed.

Source: The Significance of the Huge European Warez Scene Raids

Officers in 14 countries coordinated to carry out multiple searches in an attempt to inflict serious damage on the so-called Warez Scene, the shadowy network of Internet based servers and individuals who deal in large quantities of pirated music, movies and software.

Yesterday nearly all information had come from either the authorities, police or staff at datacenters, notably Sweden’s PRQ, but since then TorrentFreak sources with varying levels of inside information have been trying to put us in the picture.

So, keeping in mind that reporting on the Scene is a black art, that we’ve had to hold some information back to protect certain individuals and keep our sources happy, and redact here and there to protect others, here are our findings thus far.

“In pretty much all of the cases the police just walked into the datacenters, proceeded with warrants, more or less unplugged the boxes and left with them,” one source told us. “They knew very well exactly what they were looking for and this was a highly coordinated attack.”

While there were reports of individuals having been taken in for questioning yesterday, for an operation of this size those numbers seem unusually low. This is due to the operation targeting only ‘topsites’ – no specific release groups or their members appear to have been the focus of the action. It’s believed that some siteops weren’t so lucky.

We know that the raids were carried out at the behest of the Belgian authorities and two sources have told us that it is suspected that a Scene group in Belgium had been infiltrated a long time ago. Indeed, the authorities over there say that this operation had been two years in the making.

Another source is pointing the finger squarely at a siteop with poor security, but whatever the reasons, these sites are now in disarray.

As of last night, all the following Scene sites were down either because they were successfully targeted in the raids or as a precautionary measure. The first three are said to be very highly ranked and three of the top four were almost certainly busted.

1. BAR – Sweden.

2. LOST – Czech Republic

3. [name redacted] – major site in The Netherlands

4. SC – Sweden / Poland

5. Affiliated site in Eastern Europe believed safe, but down.

6. [porn section of a sitering, redacted] – Sweden

Based on the information we’re being provided with, certain sites probably survived due to the techniques they employed to thwart this kind of an attack. In other cases perhaps the police didn’t quite get it right. We can’t be more specific.

Sources inform TorrentFreak that Sweden’s BAR was one of the four most important 0day sites. Since it went down yesterday, another significant southern European site in that top four has announced it has closed its operations for good.

In respect of the Czech operation, Jan Podhajsky of the Czech Pirate Party told us that a raid was carried out on a dormitory at the Czech Technical University in Prague. This is not the first time police have carried out an operation in this location – Podhajsky told us that raids against hackers have been going on there since the late 90s.

It seems that the impact of this large, Europe-wide operation will be significant, at least for the near future.

“Many groups and especially server operators are once again scared shitless,” a source told us. “We can probably expect more ‘resignations’ in the following days.”

Update: We’ve received information which suggests that a topsite, possibly the main one in the UK, was busted yesterday. There are unconfirmed reports that another is also down, but that could be just as a precaution. Two Scene groups have been reported to us as badly affected by the topsite raids but until we can confirm, we won’t be naming them.

Anyone with further information can contact us in confidence via tips@torrentfreak.com

Source: Inside Yesterday’s European Warez Piracy Raids

By now, everyone knows that the ‘Scene’ is just as leaky as the movie distribution model Hollywood would also like to protect, and within minutes their releases have begun to appear on peer-to-peer networks, especially BitTorrent. For those in the ‘Scene’ this is generally a huge disappointment. For millions of regular file-sharers, it’s a dream come true.

However, increasingly over the last few years, big movie releases have completely bypassed the usual routes to the Internet. In 2005, Star Wars Episode III appeared on the Internet to a fairly surprised ‘Scene’, which led to numerous groups ‘rebranding’ the release as their own, a ‘crime’ usually reserved for those lower down the pecking order.

And who can forget Wolverine? The leak of this unfinished ‘Workprint’ copy generated hundreds of mainstream news headlines. Did it come from the ‘Scene’? Absolutely not. It was leaked straight to the general Internet, bypassing the well-worn structure of the so-called ‘piracy pyramid’ altogether.

This phenomenon has been increasing rapidly, with some normally staunchly pro-Scene news outlets having to admit that times are changing. VCDQuality, a site which for years has been dedicated to reporting how quickly the ‘Scene’ releases movies onto the Internet, recently announced a significant change. They would now begin reporting when the new breed of releasers are first to introduce new movies to the Internet.

After all this time, the dedicated P2P release groups had finally been acknowledged. As can be seen here, their achievement list is growing with big movies and big releases. From Cams, through Telesyncs to DVD Screeners, it seems no format is escaping attention.

Following on from VCDQuality’s decision, a couple of weeks ago P2PElite was quietly launched. Its admin, KoOlWaReZ, told us that the site was designed and created to provide a home, profile and a central location for P2P release groups to get feedback, ratings, and interaction with the public on their releases.

While the site is still in development, the suggestion that release groups could interact with their audience is a major departure from the hide-away attitude demonstrated by ‘Scene’ groups.

Nevertheless, groups are indeed supporting the project. Among others, PrisM, iMAGiNE, Rx, FLAWL3SS, KiNGDOM, Noir, MAGNET and 420Demons (soon to be known as THC) are participating, names which will be familiar to huge numbers of BitTorrent users.

For Scene groups, leaks to BitTorrent and the wider Internet are the last thing they want. For the new wave of P2P release groups such as the above, this is the main aim.

TorrentFreak has managed to interview some Scene release group members before, so when we had the opportunity to speak with some straight-to-BitTorrent releasers, we jumped at the chance.

In the next part of this series we’ll look at the P2P release scene a little closer and chat with a couple of BitTorrent release groups to see what makes them tick.

Source: BitTorrent Releasers Slice The Top Off Movie Piracy Pyramid

A BPI investigation led to a police swoop on members of the group. They were subjected to searches, seizure of their computers and other assorted items, and later questioned at length.

The suspects were charged with Conspiracy to Defraud (the music industry), released on bail and ordered to reappear at later dates. One was later released with a police warning and told that charges would not be pressed against him.

In the meantime the alleged leader of DV8 had his bail pushed back to mid November pending further investigations. TorrentFreak’s previously-reliable sources positioned close to the case have now informed us that the individual answered his bail a few days ago and was subjected to another day of questioning. He has allegedly been charged with ‘defrauding the music industry’, although the conspiracy element appears to have been dropped.

Earlier we reported that two more arrests were made of suspected pre-release music suppliers to DV8. One of those individuals was an executive at a record label. Our information is that this executive has now lost his job, but no charges have been brought against him.

It was believed that the delay in charging the alleged leader of the group was due to the police needing more time to track down additional suppliers, one of which we were told works for a major media outlet. Indeed, we are now being informed that during the last few weeks there have been further raids on people linked to the group.

One is reportedly a writer at a music publication, who allegedly supplied music to the leader of the group. We are told he was raided 2 weeks ago.

Another is a US member of DV8 who left months before the first raid. He was arrested several weeks ago but is understood to have been released without charge.

Court dates are pending for those charged, but could arrive as quickly as early 2010.

Source: Pre-Release Music Piracy: Further Arrests, Exec Loses Job

Svenne-Redcross is a movie release group who have been active for nearly ten years, a long time to remain undetected and uninfiltrated. Their first serious release was a DVDRip (converted to SVCD) of ‘Richard Gere’s Dr T and the Women’ in December 2000. Its last appears to be Swedish movie ‘Johan Falk – GSI ‘ released just over two weeks ago.

But, as they say, all good things come to an end.

Scene release groups use NFOs, which are small text files commonly used to provide information about pirate releases. The NFO’s can also be used as a so-called ‘Scene Notice’, a type of message which can be passed around Scene groups to inform them of important information – even if half the time they are simply used to flame other groups or individuals.

This weekend Svenne released an NFO/Scene notice themselves, but the content was highly unusual, even if it started off with bad, if unremarkable news;

“After ten years on the Scene we’re stepping down and leaving it forever,” the group wrote. “We have been exposed by the Swedish Antipiracy Bureau whom have identified all of our members and sites.”

The Swedish Antipiracy Bureau – Antipiratbyrån (APB) – is home to the infamous Henrik Pontén who has taken many actions against pirates, including a raid earlier this year against a large Swedish topsite.

At the time Pontén said that APB had managed to identify the people running the server and noted that it was now up to the police to investigate. But strangely, even though APB appear to know a lot about Svenne, it seems that the police won’t be getting involved.

“The good thing is that we have had the possibility to make a settlement. Our activity is immediately ceased,” Svenne announced.

Why APB have offered Svenne a deal is unclear, and there is currently little public knowledge of its nature or the terms imposed. However, what is clear is that APB required Svenne to do some public grovelling – it’s hard to imagine that they would make this kind of statement voluntarily, especially since just 2 weeks ago they said how proud they were of their achievements;

“We apologies to all Swedish and foreign movie producers for the damage we have caused,” wrote the group. But they didn’t stop there – APB also required some valuable FUD to be spread, to scare others in The Scene;

“Those of you who are still involved in the Scene – close down. None of you are safe out there,” warns Svenne in their apparent neck-saving statement.

Of course, while this announcement seems designed to spread fear, the threat may not be entirely hollow. Svenne has connections to lots of other groups, so the strong possibility remains that some of those could be compromised too.

Source: Anti-Piracy Outfit Forces Scene Group To Apologize

Following a BPI investigation, police (without fanfare or media reports) swooped on members of the group, the earliest back in May. Another seemingly significant arrest took place in June.

In early morning raids, as many as a dozen officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Hi-Tech Crime Unit and BPI investigators conducted searches on the addresses and took the suspects away for questioning, along with seized computers, cell phones, CDs and MP3 players, bank statements and sundry other items.

After extended questioning the police charged the suspects with Conspiracy to Defraud (the music industry). They were released on bail and ordered to reappear at later dates.

Around a week after our article, IFPI issued their own press release (which was used as the basis of dozens of other news articles) which largely confirmed our earlier report but in much lower detail, instead preferring to include quotes from David Lammy MP, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, and the heads of the IFPI and BPI’s anti-piracy operations.

DV8, like many release groups, specialized in pre-release piracy – in this case the publication of music on the Internet before official release dates. No-one needs to be reminded of the hatred the music industry holds for these type of leaks, after all when OiNK was raided it was the availability of pre-release material that dominated the news and was often provided as the justification for taking the site down.

In order to put the material on to the Internet in this way, Scene groups and individual uploaders need contacts somewhere in the supply chain, so-called industry insiders who act as suppliers for pre-release material. In the case of the OiNK uploaders, they had simply purchased CDs legitimately from online retailers who shipped products a day or two early, possibly in error. But to have the really juicy leaks, people more deeply involved in the supply chain can prove invaluable.

Based on information provided by our previously-reliable sources in this investigation, today we are able to reveal that during late August two more arrests were made of individuals the police believe acted as suppliers to DV8. One of those individuals is an executive at a record label.

In the meantime the alleged leader of DV8 has seen his bail pushed back to mid November pending further investigations. Our sources believe that this delay is due to the police needing more time to track down additional suppliers, one of which we are told works for a major media outlet.

Another member of DV8 who was initially arrested back in June and was the subject of the one and only triumphant IFPI press release mentioned earlier, has been rather more fortunate. He has been released with a police warning and told that charges would not be pressed against him. IFPI are unlikely to issue an updated press release about this release of a suspect though – they have also never mentioned the earliest and most important arrest made by the police in this investigation.

After word spread of the initial raids, the remaining members of the DV8 team went into hiding, taking their servers down and removing their topsite accounts. However, these type of groups can be remarkably resilient and can be quick to reform.

Indeed, while DV8 may be ‘dead’, some of its members live on and the releases have continued under a new group name – around one hundred of them so far, including some very big releases indeed.

Source: ‘Label Executive’ Arrested in DV8 Music Piracy Investigation

Now, according to information leaked to TorrentFreak, one of the most prolific music release groups around has suffered a significant setback after police quietly started arresting members during the last month. The latest arrest came yesterday, as police and BPI investigators conducted an early morning raid on a senior member of the group.

At this stage we cannot publish the group’s name (see update at the bottom of this article for group name) but we believe that they are responsible for more than 3,000 single and album releases. The group was relatively young and had a membership of less than ten individuals, although they aren’t all based in the UK.

The first arrest happened mid-May and the most recent yesterday, conducted in a similar fashion to earlier raids against those involved in the TV Links and AradiTracker cases.

In early morning raids, officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Hi-Tech Crime Unit backed up by senior investigators from the BPI took the suspects by surprise. Sources close to the investigation told TorrentFreak that as many as 15 officers conducted searches on the target addresses, arresting suspects and taking them away for questioning.

Hardware was of great interest to the police as they seized large amounts of electrical equipment including all computers, cell phones, various CDs and MP3 players, bank statements and sundry other items from the addresses.

After hours of questioning by police in the presence of BPI investigators, in common with the OiNK uploaders the suspects were charged with Conspiracy to Defraud (the music industry), bailed and ordered to reappear at later dates.

According to sources, all remaining group members have gone into hiding, all servers are now offline and topsite accounts have been deleted.

More on this breaking story as we get it.

Update: Our sources have agreed to let us name the group – it is DV8. Their latest release was Brokencyde-Im_Not_A_Fan_But_The_Kids_Like_It-2009-DV8 – time will tell if it will be the last.

Source: Major Scene MP3 Pre-Release Group Busted By Police

There are several large topsites hosted in Sweden, some of which host hundreds of terabytes of pirated material. However, according to ‘scene’ etiquette, the files on these are not supposed to leak to other (more public) file-sharing networks but eventually they all do, with most of the big releases managing this in mere minutes.

This puts these servers close to the top of the ‘Piracy Pyramid‘ and one of the priority targets of anti-piracy outfits. Two weeks ago, Pirate Bay co-founder Anakata told the court that these scene members “hate The Pirate Bay” because they prefer to keep their releases within a select group.

Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån – the Swedish anti-piracy office – applauded the police and said that this was one of the largest busts ever, and the largest in Sweden. According to one of our own sources, several well known scene groups were using the servers, which means that they may have been compromised.

For now, the investigation focuses on the person who operated the server in question. “A person suspected of running the server has been identified and it is now up to the police to investigate this. Now, we will continue to look for similar pirate servers,” Pontén told Aftonbladet.

Pontén also claimed that the Sunnydale topsite was the source of all pirated material available on The Pirate Bay, but this was denied by Peter Sunde. “More than 800,000 people have uploaded to The Pirate Bay, so I don’t believe it’s the source of everything. But it is possible that it’s a major source,” he said.

Antipiratbyrån’s involvement in this raid is questionable. In 2005 the police conducted an similar raid at Swedish ISP Bahnhof, only to be presented with evidence that Antipiratbyrån themselves had hired someone to plant copyright material. It turned out that the infiltrator was far from a passive observer. The infiltrator had transferred 68,000 files and went as far as buying hardware for the server to increase its storage capacity.

Antipiratbyrån was later sued for illegal trespassing and harassment because of these entrapment practices which are illegal in Sweden. Now, four years on and they are again involved in a similar raid, but whether they had any help from an insider this time is unknown. The exact role Antipiratbyrån played in this raid remains unclear, but it is likely that they tipped off the police about the location and existence of ‘Sunnydale.’

Pontén said that his organization will continue its “war on piracy.”

Update: Only one of Sunnydale’s servers was seized, the location of the other servers remains unknown.

Source: Large Pirate Topsite Raided in Sweden

The five, using names such as iced, kidzapped, niterangr and tcut, were caught as part of ‘Operation Higher Education’ – a component of ‘Operation Fastlink‘ – and are all charged with conspiracy.

According to a report, Dominic Tymorek, a 53 year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, and 57 year-old Robert Hardick, of Getzville, N.Y., face three counts. Steven Fiatarone, a 55 year-old from Spring Hill, Florida and 43-year-old Michael Uszakow, of Oakdale, Minn., face two counts and William Parrott, of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., faces one count.

If convicted, the men face up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 on each count.

At the same time, 25 year-old Daniel Jaeger, aka ‘Microeguy’ of Wappinger, New York, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty before Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez in Hartford. Jaeger admitted to being a ‘scene member’ for two years and building and running an FTP server known as ‘DataStream’ (DS), used for the distribution of pirated material.

Jaeger admitted that he knew that those accused along with him had uploaded pirate material to both ‘DataStream’ and another FTP site known as ‘Arakis’ (AKS)

Jaeger also faces five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Source: Warez Scene Members Facing 5 Years in Prison

Last week, District Judge Frank D. Whitney sentenced Justin Paul Emch for his involvement in the ‘warez scene‘ – specifically an offense claimed to have been carried out when he was leader of the release group ‘MaGE‘.

Emch was indicted in yet another action forming Operation Fastlink – a huge undercover investigation carried out by the FBI, the US Department of Justice and Interpol into the ‘warez scene’

It’s claimed that Emch was a leader of the group ‘MaGE’ and worked to supply the group with software. Other members of the group then cracked the software (removed the security/copy protection) and passed the titles back to Emch for testing. The group had a huge collection of copyright material to which Emch had full access.

For his actions, Emch (like a few before him) received 12 months in prison on a felony count of conspiracy to infringe copyright, two years of supervised release and a $5000 fine.

Presumably the authorities will be wanting to keep a tighter grip on Emch than they did with the leader of RISCISO who proved to be quite an annoyance.

Source: Warez Bust: MaGE Leader Sentenced to Prison