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Illegal download portal shut down after authorities conduct nationwide raids

After raids which took place in 13 German states on Wednesday and Thursday in an investigation into an illegal download portal, authorities have blocked usenetrevolution.info - a platform that is believed to have caused millions of euros in losses.

Published: 10 November 2017 12:33 CET
Illegal download portal shut down after authorities conduct nationwide raids
File photo: DPA.

During the raids which took place across the country, the apartments of 42 suspects were searched and the servers in the suspects’ homes were shut down, the attorney general's office in Frankfurt said on Friday.

Pirated copies of films, music, computer games, software and e-books which were distributed via the German-language portal were also blocked in the crackdown. Authorities moreover confiscated numerous computers, data carriers and network technologies.

Usenetrevolution.info went offline on Wednesday.

Investigators believe a 49-year-old man from Hesse is one of the prime operators of the platform. According to authorities, he was supported by his 39-year-old wife and three middle-aged men from Hesse – four other people who are suspected of moderating the site.

The rest of the suspects are between the ages of 23 and 72, according to a police report.

A total of 27,000 members had recently downloaded illegal content from usenetrevolution.info.

As a result, the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt report that copyright owners are expected to have incurred losses of at least €2.9 million. Current investigations are being conducted on the grounds of the unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted material.

A few of the portal’s servers were reportedly located outside of Germany as well. With the help of the state criminal police office in Hesse, two servers – one located in the Netherlands and another in France – were also shut down.

CRIME

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

German authorities said Friday they had arrested a 27-year-old Syrian man who allegedly planned an Islamist attack on army soldiers using two machetes in Bavaria.

Published: 13 September 2024 11:17 CEST
Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

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