Demonoid Operators Face Criminal Investigation in Mexico

[nsane.forums]

Following the news yesterday that Demonoid had been shut down by Ukrainian police, today brings further woes for the site. According to a source at the site’s former webhost, the owners of Demonoid are now the subject of a criminal investigation and prosecution in Mexico after one of the site’s admins was arrested there last year.

Confirmation came out of Ukraine yesterday that not only had Demonoid suffered a DDoS and hacker attack, it had also been raided by the authorities.

In the middle of last week government investigators arrived at ColoCall, Demonoid’s webhost, to shut Demonoid down.

“Investigators have copied all the information from the servers Demonoid and sealed them,” an anonymous ColoCall source confirmed to local news site Kommersant.

With the dust settling today, the sequence of events is becoming a little more clear.

ColoCall Commercial Director Peter Vlasenko has now confirmed that his company had repeatedly warned Demonoid of complaints being made against it. He added that the company had also cautioned Demonoid’s operators that problems could lead to the ISP severing its relationship with the site. Last week, that’s exactly what happened.

“The Division of Economic Crimes [DEC] received an international request from Interpol to send a request to the company ColoCall. DEC sent the request to the provider, after which the ISP decided to stop working with Demonoid,” said Sergei Burlakov of Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.

But the bad news for Demonoid doesn’t end there. The Interpol request that finally forced the closure of the site was the result of call from thousands of miles away in North America.

“In Mexico a criminal case against the owners of Demonoid has been initiated and the tracker is charged with intellectual property rights violations,” Burlakov confirmed.

Demonoid’s links to Mexico have been rumored for some time, but it was action taken last year that finally gave them credibility.

TorrentFreak learned that in October 2011, Mexican authorities carried out a raid in Monterrey, the capital city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. The prime target was one of Demonoid’s staff. Following the action the authorities completely blocked access to the site in Mexico.

Movie industry sources confirmed to TorrentFreak that the raids had indeed resulted in the arrest of one of Demonoid’s administrators. It remains unclear whether the current investigation centers around the same individual.

View: Original Article

[funkyy]

I'd like to give my tuppence worth about this story and "intellectual piracy" in general.

The suits keep repeating a plucked from the air, estimated figure of how much revenue is lost to those who download movies/music. This imaginary figure is usually something like 500 million dollars. But you notice they NEVER, EVER quote the REAL figure of how much we SPEND on blank DVD's and CD's? Now imagine if from midnight tonight the whole world has an attack of conscience and we all stop buying packs of DVD's and CD's can you imagine how much REAL COUNTABLE REVENUE would instantly be lost? Sales of DVD's and CD's would drop by 99% and people like Sony, TDK, Imation, Toshiba, etc, etc would be wringing their hands and crying themselves to sleep. It appears they want it both ways 'cos they're not going to tell me that they believe their DVD/CD sales are so high because we're all backing up our family fotos??????? Give me a break.

[DKT27]

Wait wait.

From what I've heard, in Maxico, there are high crime rates, drug cartels, killings, and what not. So, instead of going after them criminals and making the world a better place, they are going after a torrent site admin, which, by human rights perspective, has done no crime? :huh:

So original America (U.S.), so original. -_-

[Ambrocious]

I hope Kim Dotcom makes it through all of this without having to go to prison....it seems they are out for blood against Kim...he needs constant protection at this point otherwise they WILL kill that man.

[marke68]

Wait wait.

From what I've heard, in Maxico, there are high crime rates, drug cartels, killings, and what not. So, instead of going after them criminals and making the world a better place, they are going after a torrent site admin, which, by human rights perspective, has done no crime? :huh:

So original America (U.S.), so original. -_-

Yep there was "only" 5,037 murders in Mexico between January and March of this year and around 1,000 per month since,but why bother with such minor crimes when we have a big bad torrent site admin to go after.

The mind truly boggles.