2 Men Tied to Internet Piracy Gang Plead Guilty
They were members of a global community of computer nerds who claimed bragging rights for pirating the hottest software and DVD programs and posting them on the Internet for anyone to download for free.
Investigators say cyberspace gangs that make up the so-called Warez community have cheated legitimate software and film distributors out of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
On Thursday, two key players in the most prominent gang, known as DrinkorDie, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to criminal charges of copyright infringement.
Kentaga Kartadinata, 30, of Los Angeles and Mike Nguyen, 26, of West Los Angeles agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Customs Service in an investigation targeting Warez community members around the world.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher Johnson said in court that indictments are expected soon against at least 50 other DrinkorDie members.
Under terms of a plea agreement, Kartadinata and Nguyen each face 27 to 33 months in prison. They are free on bail pending sentencing a year from now.
The charges against them grew out of raids in December by law enforcement officers in the United States, Australia, Finland, England and Norway. Investigators seized more than 100 computers allegedly used by members of the Warez (pronounced like wares) scene.
Johnson said Kartadinata and Nguyen are the first suspects charged in the massive case.
Nguyen, a computer programmer at UCLA, managed several of the group’s file servers containing thousands of pirated software titles.
“Every program you can find on the shelves at Fry’s or Best Buy, they had on the file servers available for downloading,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Warez groups obtain copyrighted programs, sometimes before they are released to the public. Members known as “crackers” then remove security protections from the programs, making them ready for distribution via the Internet.
The Customs Service has estimated that more than 70% of all illegal software sites on the Internet are operated by Warez community members. The first group to disseminate a new software product scores points, which are posted on a Web site.
The Warez groups maintain their own e-mail servers, allowing members to communicate with each other in relative privacy.
Kartadinata handled that task for DrinkorDie. Last year, the Customs Service obtained a court warrant to eavesdrop on Kartadinata’s e-mail server. Investigators were able to identify members of the group and monitor their activities.
DrinkorDie was founded in Moscow in 1993 by a Russian calling himself Deviator. Johnson said Thursday that the group’s membership was about 75 until recently.
In one of its earliest pirating feats, DrinkorDie boasted of releasing MS Windows95 two weeks before Microsoft began selling it to the American public.
There are eight to 10 major groups and several smaller ones in the Warez community, but Drink-orDie is considered the most accomplished, according to the Customs Service.
