Alleged SPARKS Member ‘Raid’ Pleads Not Guilty to Piracy Charges

[shamu726]

One of the alleged key members of piracy group SPARKS has pleaded not guilty to US Government charges that he was involved in a conspiracy that cost movie companies tens of millions of dollars. Jonatan Correa, aka 'Raid', has been granted bail on a $75,000 bond with a number of conditions attached.

 

 

On August 25, unofficial reports began to circulate that something big was underway in the top-tier piracy world known as The Scene.

 

So-called topsites, the servers where masses of copyright-infringing content are stored, began shutting down globally as it became clear that law enforcement action was underway.

 

Within hours, the US Department of Justice announced that three key members of the piracy groups known as SPARKS, GECKOS, DRONES and SPLiNTERS had been indicted, charged with a range of offenses connected to movie and TV show piracy.

 

As reports of wider arrests filtered in from law enforcement entities in Europe, the status of the indicted trio was clarified in the United States. George Bridi, 50, a citizen of Great Britain, had been detained in Cyprus on an INTERPOL Red Notice. Norway resident Umar Ahmad (aka ‘Artist’), 39, was still at large. Jonatan Correa (aka ‘Raid’), 36, had been arrested on US soil in Olathe, Kansas, and placed into custody.

Jonatan Correa (aka ‘Raid’)

The USDOJ alleges that Correa was involved in the ‘Sparks Conspiracy’ (the collective name for the prosecution) from around January 2011 through to August 2020. This differs from the charges against Bridi and Ahmad, whose ‘conspiracy’ charges run from January 2011 to January 2020. The reasons for this remain unclear.

 

All three are charged with causing “tens of millions of dollars” in losses to film production studios. According to a superseding indictment, Correa and the others fraudulently obtained copies of discs containing movies and TV shows in advance of their official release dates.

 

It is further claimed that Correa remotely accessed a computer belonging to a co-conspirator in Westchester County in order to “illegally record and reproduce” copyrighted TV shows. At this stage, the identity of this alleged co-conspirator is being kept under wraps by the authorities.

 

While Correa’s co-defendants face additional charges including wire fraud and transporting stolen property, Correa faces a single charge of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Correa Arrested, Quickly Released, Pleads Not Guilty

After being arrested in Kansas on August 25 at 07:00, court records reveal that Correa was presented before the Kansas district court on August 26 and released the very same day.

 

Other documents that might offer additional information persistently return a “not found” error on records portal PACER, while access to others is simply denied. However, additional detail is available relating to Correa’s status and plea.

 

Records indicate that Correa was released on bail with a $75,000 bond, secured by cash or property. His release comes with pre-trial supervision conditions, including that he must surrender all travel documents and submit to a ban on all new travel document applications.

 

In addition, Correa has agreed to participate in a drug testing and treatment program and is forbidden from possessing firearms, other weapons, or any “destructive devices”. He is further ordered to abstain from contact with co-defendants and witnesses, with conditions.

 

“Defendant shall have no contact with any co-defendant, witnesses known to Defendant, or any other members of the Sparks Group without the presence of counsel,” a bail document reads, adding that Correa must not engage in any of the conduct alleged in his charging document either.

 

Perhaps most importantly of all, exactly one week ago on September 1, 2020, Correa appeared remotely before United States Magistrate Judge James L. Cott and was arraigned on the superseding indictment. Correa pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

 

Whether that position will change later down the line remains to be seen but right now, his alleged co-conspirators don’t yet appear to be in US custody.

Alleged Co-Conspirators Bridi and Ahmad

According to the most recent official information, Ahmad (Artist) is reportedly still at large, perhaps in Norway, while Bridi is located some 5,500 miles away from New York on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.

 

Since the unsealing of his indictment and from the filings made available to date, Ahmad hasn’t been mentioned in court documents. In respect of Bridi, however, the US Government has requested and obtained multiple certified copies of his indictment and arrest warrant for the “purposes of extraditing the defendant to the United States.”

 

When that will take place is unknown but at least as far as Correa’s cases is concerned, Acting United States Attorney Audrey Strauss told the court last week that the parties are currently in discussion over discovery and a pre-trial disposition. A conference has been set for October 26, 2020, for these discussions to continue.

 

As previously reported, the action against SPARKS has negatively affect pirated releases from The Scene, with a steep decline observed in volumes of content being made available.

 

Source documents here (1,2,3)

 

 

 

Source: TorrentFreak

[straycat19]

6 hours ago, shamu726 said:

This differs from the charges against Bridi and Ahmad, whose ‘conspiracy’ charges run from January 2011 to January 2020. The reasons for this remain unclear.

 

Really?!?!  Seems pretty clear to me that in January those individuals became Confidential Informants (CI) and encouraged to continue with their activities and report on others.  So while they were working at the behest of the USDOJ they cannot be charged with any crimes during that period.  This is a common law enforcement practice at all levels for many types of crimes.  They could also received lighter sentences for cooperating though the charges would not be dismissed.

 

[steven36]

On 9/9/2020 at 11:49 AM, straycat19 said:

They could also received lighter sentences for cooperating though the charges would not be dismissed.

It want do no good  only the English scene and parts of the EU was hit .Still  some of the English  groups that predate Sparks are releasing  most all the soap operas and some reality  shows  are being released by the English scene again . The German  scene never slowed  down  they use to raids  because of tougher anti piracy laws so they was way more secure  they release many TV Shows  and movies  with English Audio  in them . Music never slowed down ether. About every 10 years  the scene gets raided   so this is not new . Back in 2001 after the raids everything went underground  because p2p  was not  on  websites   everything was  done in p2p clients  .

 

Today its different half the stuff the scene was releasing was stolen off  elite private torrent sites anyways  and it  just stolen from public p2p and being released anyway   .  All new stuff is still coming out as far as Music , Movies and TV Shows   .  Just they nothing new out much because of the coronavirus  they just now  making movies and TV shows  again and they have to ware mask and stuff  on set.   The scene  has existed long before SPARKS  and recovered from raids many times before they was around before  they was a www  they started out in the 70s on the BBS . Only thing that really hurting is  Games  so unless the scene starts releasing them  the web scene will have to do it.  The Windows software scene has been pretty dead every since they made Windows 8  and people started using smart phones.

[steven36]

Here  are a few  raids  on the scene  that happen before

 

Operation Buccaneer 2001 software companies  and scene groups

 

An undercover operation began in October 2000. On December 11, 2001, law enforcement agents in six countries targeted 62 people suspected of violating software copyright, with leads in twenty other countries. U.S. law enforcement agents, led by the United States Customs Service, raided computers in the economics department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Los Angeles, an "off-campus location" of the University of Oregon, and dorm rooms at Duke University and Purdue University. Information obtained led to a subsequent raid at the Rochester Institute of Technology, described by "warez gadfly 'ttol'" as one of "the two major hubs for communications between pirate groups" (along with the University of Twente).^[6] However, the universities themselves were not considered targets of the criminal investigation. Several software companies were also raided.

 

"The Customs Service said it had singled out DrinkOrDie because it was considered one of the most sophisticated of the rings operating within a loose, global network." The DrinkOrDie site, where non-free software could be downloaded for free, was shut down the following day. However, Farhad Manjoo wrote in a Wired magazine article that others were puzzled why the group was targeted; Manjoo characterized them as "small potatoes in the world of software theft", while an anonymous Australian infringer was quoted as saying, "they aren't the first to come to mind when you think to yourself 'who's the big deal in the scene?'"

 

Around 70 search warrants were served and 150 computers were seized for analysis. Raids were also conducted in Canada, Britain, Australia, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Other groups investigated in the operation were warez groups such as RiSC, RAZOR1911, RequestToSend (RTS), ShadowRealm (SRM), WeLoveWarez (WLW) and POPZ.

 

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer

 

Operation Site Down 2005 -2008  Movies , Top sites and scene groups

 

Operation Site Down is the umbrella name for a law enforcement initiative conducted by the FBI and law enforcement agents from ten other countries which resulted in a raid on targets on June 29, 2005. Three separate undercover investigations were involved, based in Chicago, Charlotte and San Jose. The raid consisted of approximately 70 searches in the United States and approximately 20 others in ten other countries in an effort to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading Warez groups which distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music and games on the Internet.

 

On February 1, 2006, the U.S. Attorney's Office under Patrick Fitzgerald announced that it was indicting nineteen members of Risciso, a software and movie infringement ring, in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The lead prosecutor for the government in this case was Assistant U.S. Attorney Pravin Rao.

 

Up to May 6, 2008, there had been over 40 convictions as a result of the ongoing investigation. As part of each plea agreement, each defendant has agreed to forfeit the equipment that was seized during the federal search warrants executed on June 29, 2005.

 

An FBI undercover agent, who went by the alias Griffen created two California Gigabit Top Sites (located at Hurricane Electric): LAD and CHUD Chirayu Patel (nebula), a member of Boozers, becomes a SiteOp on LAD and CHUD which are both hosted in Fremont, CA (which is where Patel resides). Patel, through his friends and sources, acquired major groups affiliates such as Centropy and TDA (The Divine Alcoholics) to the two fed topsites.

 

Over the two years that both LAD and CHUD were online, the FBI collected IPs of some of the top copyright infringement providers. FBI was able to get Patel's address because he sent griffen some motorcycle stunt DVDs via mail and gave his return address on the envelope Centropy leader, who went by the alias of both 'marvel' and 'cartel,' was arrested in Indiana. The Centropy Herbie release was on the server pre'd, meaning that even though the Herbie release was released a day after the raids, it had already been available on topsites.

 

Source :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Site_Down

 

Scene  members got years in jail both times  the feds raided before ,  the software scene  went underground in 2001 just like they are now . It happens every so many years  and the scene always recovers . Today it  is Sparks and there affiliates  yesteryear it was Risciso and Centropy  . What is old is new and history just repeating itself . Only the names change. The FBI   had there own TOP Sites for 2 years  and released warez for the scene to get info and   the amount of warez only increased in the following years after because  it only it caused problems in the long run to  a few scene members . You cant  kill what you cant see.    Thats like when the feds brought  down NARCOS  it done no good.Crime  is at a all time high in Colombia and  now they  just use Mexico as a drop point and the Mexican Government  is so scared  they let El Chapo's son go  to keep peace , 
 

https://nypost.com/2019/10/18/mexico-releases-el-chapos-son-to-protect-lives-amid-chaos-in-sinaloa-city/

 

P2P  and DDL  sites make  millions  ,Drug Lords  make billions  as long as they people  that can get rich off it  they will be a suppler .

 

 

PS: The OP  was just  to plead guilty  or not guilty  once the real trial  starts  is when we get to find out what kind of case  the Feds have  on Sparks .

 

Before  Operation site down they was Operation Copycat   it was  a film critic who had access  to DVDs of movies before they was released that sold a 100 copies to warez supplier  who helped  the FEDS . Most likely SPARKS supplier  that was selling them the movies  got busted and ratted  these guys out. But we dont know the whole story yet  it more to it than what is said yet  they  don't disclose  it tell the trial

 

"Operation Copycat has yielded the conviction of a film critic who sold approximately 117 movies for illegal distribution. In addition, the case has yielded several notable firsts including the first convictions for recording a movie in a theater and uploading a pre-released movie on the Internet. The success of this investigation shows that individuals cannot hide behind advanced technology and the Internet to reproduce and distribute copyrighted works," U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan stated. "I thank the FBI and the prosecution team for their outstanding work on this case."

 

Source https://web.archive.org/web/20070927015027/http://www.lawfuel.com/show-release.asp?ID=5996

 

After all someone higher up the chain  that was connected to the movie Industry was selling  the Movies.  Sparks  just removed the DRM and released movies on the internet for Free,  the scene is more  than just a hobby  its a way of life to these pirates . Sparks had a Good Run too 10 years  of releasing  and supplying  there affiliates (friend teams) . So after 10 years i doubt just one day some Wholesaler of Blu-Ray , DVD  and Digital  Releases  turn themselves in and came clean someone had to ratted them out because they was busted 1st.

 

[straycat19]

I know most of the people on here are too young to remember NewsGroups and all the music, movies, and programs we use to share on there.  It was great because for most people access was free.  I bought a program called Agent to make downloading easier.  Keep in mind this was 30 years ago and we were using 56k modems.  The point is, even back then groups were being taken down and posts removed.  And some of us had to change usernames multiple times because we were banned for sharing data.  So historically things like this happened long before the scene was someone's wetdream.

 

[Mutton]

6 minutes ago, straycat19 said:

I know most of the people on here are too young to remember NewsGroups...

 

I'm not! Newsgroups were a lifeline, for binaries and for communication before forums became a thing. I used Agent too. When 'they' cottoned on to the sharing, it became a game of chasing the posts across different usenet providers and trying to keep ahead of the cancel instructions as they propagated.

 

I had almost forgotten that usenet used to be provided as part of standard ISP packages back then.

[steven36]

2 hours ago, straycat19 said:

I know most of the people on here are too young to remember NewsGroups and all the music, movies, and programs we use to share on there.  It was great because for most people access was free.  I bought a program called Agent to make downloading easier.  Keep in mind this was 30 years ago and we were using 56k modems.  The point is, even back then groups were being taken down and posts removed.  And some of us had to change usernames multiple times because we were banned for sharing data.  So historically things like this happened long before the scene was someone's wetdream.

 

The scene  predates  56k  modems  and even the public internet access. The 56K modem was invented by Dr. Brent Townshend in 1996. By then  the DOD had done cracked Windows 95   a year  in fact they cracked it before M$ ever released it and posted it on the internet , Back then cracking mostly was only ripping  a cd  that somebody gave them from a software company  they worked for and making it work without  a CD . (CD Crack)  The 1st crackers of software were just a bunch of collage Kids  that  were in the DOD  and also they belonged  to other groups many went on to hold high paying jobs . they were  the 1st hackers and crackers  they work for M$ , Google ,Facebook and other tech outfits today. A bunch of hackers turned white hat and  went to work for  the Government  after  9-11  and the Government  recommended  them for those  high paying jobs  . So why would they still crack software ?

 

That a big problem we have with kids  today . the internet has became too centralized kids  no longer  want to learn about tech  and they have nobody to fill  these jobs, Tech keeps moving  forward  but  every since the Smartphone they just try to reinvent the wheel no major advancement in years. And by the way the co founders of Apple  got there start  by making boxes  that stole long distance  and sold it to other Collage kids ,   they cracked Big Telco  .

 

 

The warez scene started emerging in the 1970s, used by predecessors of software cracking and reverse engineering groups. Their work was made available on privately run bulletin board systems (BBSes). The first BBSes were located in the U.S., but similar boards started appearing in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and mainland Europe. At the time, setting up a machine capable of distributing data was not trivial and required a certain amount of technical skill. The reason it was usually done was for technical challenge. The BBSes typically hosted several megabytes of material. The best boards had multiple phone lines and up to one hundred megabytes of storage space, which was very expensive at the time.^[Releases were mostly games and later software.

 

As the world of software development evolved to counter the distribution of material and as the software and hardware needed for distribution became readily available to anyone, The Scene adapted to the changes and turned from simple distribution to actual cracking of the protections and non-commercial reverse engineering^] As many groups of people who wanted to do this emerged, a requirement for promotion of individual groups became evident, which prompted the evolution of the Artscene, which specialized in the creation of graphical art associated with individual groups.^[4] The groups would promote their abilities with ever more sophisticated and advanced software, graphical art, and later also music (demoscene).

 

The subcommunities (artscene, demoscene, etc.), which were doing nothing illegal, eventually branched off. The programs containing the group promotional material (coding/graphical/musical presentations) evolved to become separate programs distributed through The Scene and were nicknamed Intros and later Cracktros.

 

The demoscene grew especially strong in Scandinavia, where annual gatherings are hosted.

 

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene

 

 

As far as Newsgroups they was still used  when i 1st came on the net  and 56k modems are still being used  today  and back then  our emails were not web based  like they are today we used  our ISP provided emails that gave us  news groups  as well. That  before anyone used Google much . Only reason I got a web based email from Yahoo was  so i could play games and use there IM.

 

Quote

The dial-up modem is still widely used by customers in rural areas where DSL, cable or fiber-optic service is not available or people are unwilling to pay what these companies charge.

 

Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-modem-4077013

 

 

Always  with the scene its been adapt  or die regardless  of it was the changes of Tech or  if it meant going into hiding . Many German  Groups quit  during  the  EU raids  but groups  like RAZOR1911 still release cracked games for Linux  and they was investigated during the raids of 2001 when  it went underground before  they one of the oldest groups still active .

 

What gets me M$  or Google  can steal patents and they never get put in Jail but let some  cracker  get caught at it they go to jail . And ripping movies  and internet  streams  is cracking too  because  they have tools to remove DRM  that  the public don't have.  All  people involved  in Tech done something wrong if there boss made them do it.