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.
