The last of The Pirate Bay's three co-founders was arrested yesterday on the border between Laos and Thailand, signalling the end of a drawn-out manhunt for the site's infamous creators.
Fredrik Neij's apprehension follows an arrest in June for fellow co-founder Peter Sunde, as well as a three-and-a-half year prison sentence handed down to compatriot Gottfrid Warg last month.
Gottfrid Svartholm, whose story is particularly well known, had moved to Cambodia. He was extradited back to Sweden in 2012 to face not only his original sentence, but two major hacking trials, one on home soil and the other in Denmark. He was found guilty in the latter last week and is now serving a three-and-a-half year sentence.
Peter Sunde is also in custody, having been captured on May 31, 2014 on a farm in Skåne, Sweden. The former Pirate Bay spokesman’s time in prison has also beeneventful, but is very close to coming to an end.
Neij moved to Laos some years ago and has been living there with his wife and children;TorrentFreak reports that he's crossed the border into Thailand plenty of times before, but once had to appeal a decision by the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok to revoke his passport. Now, it seems Neij's luck has finally run out. After his arrest, officials held a largely symbolic press conference and took photos with a small battalion of officers. The Pirate Bay is of course still alive after countless domain changes and the handing over of command. While its founders now face the full might of the law (again), their arrests have done little to pull the cloud-based ship and its database of torrent links off course.
Update: Local Thai media reports that “U.S. movie companies” hired a lawfirm to track down Neij. It’s also been revealed that in addition to having a house on the island of Phuket, Neij had five million baht ($153,000) in a local bank account.
Source : engadget
by Malaydroid
0 comments:
Post a Comment