Last week, one of the most active releases groups of Hollywood films was sentenced to sentences of up to 17 years.
When one hears "release group" especially if the group is activated on the scene (Scene) one expects that they have somehow hidden their identities. Was it easy to catch the people who made up the group? Documents published by TorrentFreak reveal that the localization it was a relatively simple matter for them.
The investigation was launched by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), a Hollywood anti-piracy team, and as you read below, .nfos played an important role in revealing the group that was condemned last week in the West Midlands.
All five defendants were from the United Kingdom: Graeme Reid, 40 years old, Chesterfield, Scott Hemming, 25, and Reece Baker, 22 years old from Birmingham, Sahil Rafiq, 24 years old from Wolverhampton and Ben Cooper, 33, from Willenhall, were sentenced for hijacking with penalties that reached 17 years in total.
The above was behind many release groups, such as: RemixHD, 26K, UNiQUE, DTRG and HOPE / RESISTANCE.
"For a number of years, the groups illegally released more than 2.500 films online, including Argo, Avengers and Skyfall," the FACT said in a statement.
Speaking at the Wolverhampton Crown Court, prosecutor David Groome said the defendants had taken steps to avoid locating them. Let's see, was it really hard to find them?
Sahil Rafiq - Imprisonment for 4 years and 6 months
In July 2012, FACT researchers began monitoring Sahil Rafiq's team, 26K. He found that many of the torrents had been uploaded by the user "memory100".
It was also discovered that “memory100” had a profile on the torrent site Torlock, and it was determined that the same user also used other names, including 'sohail20', 'hail_alpha' and 'froggie100'.
2012, Sohail20 had posted in a forum that offered technical support for PC. In his publication he mentioned some issues he had with a laptop.
"You can help me;" asked. "Kind Regards, Sahil Rafiq".
Further research revealed that the name Sohail20 had a PhotoBucket account that contained the Memory100 logo as memory100.jpg (has now been removed).
Soon after, FACT researchers turned to Facebook and found the profile of Sahil Rafiq. From there they found where he worked, and they traced him to the credit reporting agency Equifax, which revealed his home address. This information was given to the police.
Reece Baker - 4 years and 2 months in prison
In 2012 FACT researchers began following the Baker HOPE group. In (information) the archives .NFO found that the coder was called “Baker92”, along with an email address on HushMail where they could contact him.
In another NFO file, Baker made the fatal mistake of saying, "I Love My Baby Momzie Ria."
After finding a post on the torrent site Myris.me which reported that Baker92 was a member of another DTRG team, FACT again asked Equifax for help. They assumed that the "92" in the name he used was his year of birth, so they searched for any Baker born in 1992 who had one named Ria. This led FACT - and the police - to the door of Reece Baker.
Graeme Reid - Imprisonment 3 years and 6 months
During the same month FACT discovered from the NFO records that Reid was linked to the RemixHD team.
An NFO of the 21 Jump Street movie revealed that the encoder was a person known as "Reidy" along with a HushMail email address. HushMail is known for its security, but Reid used the same email address on his Facebook page, where he described himself as a "coder" living in Chesterfield.
FACT, he searched him from the electoral list for discovering the address of his home.
Ben Cooper - Imprisonment 3 years and 6 months
During July 2012, when FACT was investigating the HOPE group, it discovered an associated user named 'Cooperman666', who was also using a HushMail email account. Again, an NFO file on a movie helped to make the connections, indicating that the coding was done by 'Cooperman'.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Cooperman666 was also an encoder for both the ANALOG group and their NFO there was a Live.com email address. However, the email address itself was used in a Facebook account for Ben Cooper's name. His page revealed that he was living in Wolverhampton and that 1981 was born.
FACT, in cooperation with Equifax, found Cooper's address
Scott Hemming - 2 years suspended imprisonment
In July 2012, while FACT was investigating the 26K team, it came across another release group called DTRG. The NFO files examined by the FACT mentioned "Kareemzos" as the encoder, by e-mail iencodefordtrg [at] live.co.uk
After linking Kareemzos and other groups (MARGIN, UNiQUE and INSANE), FACT discovered a post in a Virgin Media support forum that had the same email address as above.
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The above confirms that encryption with services such as HushMail is unnecessary when someone uses the same alias and email addresses on multiple websites. Also, birth dates in nicknames are not such a smart idea….
Long live H .Hollywood
