On Wednesday, a Swedish court indicted Gottfrid "anakata" Svartholm Warg—the Pirate Bay founder who has been held in a Swedish detention facility for more than six months.
"A large amount of data from companies and agencies was taken during the hack, including a large amount of personal data, such as personal identity numbers (personnummer) of people with protected identities," Swedish prosecutor Henrik Olin said in a statement.
Gottfrid was indicted with three other co-defendants, and the four have been charged (Google Translate) with serious fraud, attempted aggravated fraud, and aiding attempted aggravated fraud. The trial has been scheduled for late May in Stockholm. Svartholm Warg’s defense attorney, Ola Salmasson, told Ars that he had not yet seen the specific indictment, so he could not comment.
Three alleged hacking incidents
The Swedish news website Nyheter 24 reported (Google Translate) that Svartholm Warg has been formally charged with “three counts of computer hacking, one case of serious fraud, and a case of attempted aggravated fraud.”
The first count of hacking involves allegedly unlawfully using another person’s username and password to search Infotorg, a well-known massive privately held commercial database of “private individuals, companies, properties and vehicles.”
The second count, as previously reported, involves an alleged hack dating back to 2010 of Logica, a Swedish IT firm that contracts with the Swedish tax authority. In March 2012, Logica was hit by an online attack that resulted in around 9,000 Swedes (Google Translate) having their personal identity numbers and names released to the public.
Such data is normally made public in Sweden, but there are cases where it can be kept hidden (as it was among the people targeted). However there has been some speculation in the Swedish media about whether that data was genuine. Either way, two Swedes were arrested (Google Translate) last year in connection with this case, one of which was a former member of Piratbyrån (Pirate Bureau), the group that later founded The Pirate Bay. The first two hacking counts are believed to cover a period of January 2010 to April 2012.
The third count of hacking, allegedly taking place between July and August 2012, accuses Svartholm Warg of unauthorized access of major Nordic region bank Nordea’s computers. The fraud charges accuse Svartholm Warg of allegedly transferring and attempting to transfer money from Nordea to other unauthorized bank accounts.
According to ComputerSweden’s account of the indictment (Swedish), as published by the Swedish prosecutor, Svartholm Warg allegedly tried to transfer 5.7 million Swedish kronor ($900,000) to various accounts. However, only 27,000 kronor (roughly $4,200) belonging to a Danish trade union was actually transferred out.
Meanwhile, Olin told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper (Google Translate) that he believes Svartholm Warg “is the manager and mastermind behind [the] infringements.”
Peter Sunde, Pirate Bay co-founder, “seriously questioning the charges”
Svartholm Warg was deported from his adopted home of Cambodia in September 2012; he had been living there for the previous four years. The Swedish developer had been convicted along with three others connected with The Pirate Bay before, but he has yet to serve jail time or pay his fines as a result of that case. Those penalties are from a Swedish court conviction in 2009 on the charge of “assisting in making copyrighted content available.” The group was ordered to collectively pay more than $4 million.
In 2010, a Swedish appellate court reduced their prison sentences to between four and ten months each, but it increased their collective fine to 46 million Swedish kronor ($6.8 million). In February 2012, the Supreme Court of Sweden declined to hear the case.
In March 2013, the European Court of Human rights rejected the appeal of two other Pirate Bay defendants in a unanimous decision, finding that the existing Swedish conviction did not violate their human rights.
Not surprisingly, fellow Pirate Bay co-founder Peter “brokep” Sunde called the charges against his friend “bullshit” on Twitter. However, he later clarified: “I'm not saying that Gottfrid is innocent (or guilty). But I'm seriously questioning the charges.”
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