The pirate who had stolen two unpublished titles by Ed Sheeran will have to pay a fine of more than 100,000 euros in the next three months, indicates the British channel BBC this Thursday, June 15.
Over the course of 2022, the criminal had taken over unreleased songs from many artists by hacking into their digital accounts. Among the stolen content, twelve productions by rapper Lil Uzi Vert, along with more than 500 audio files found by the police, who seized his computer. Among them, the famous pieces of Ed Sheeran.
It was the collaborators of the artist Frank Ocean who detected the hacker, noting that one of his accounts had been hacked and that the content was being resold on the dark web.
First bitcoin confiscation
The pirate, named Adrian Kwiatkowski, 23, had resold the songs in question on the dark web, in exchange for cryptocurrencies. He had raised around £131,000, or just over €150,000. Half of the sum won in the form of Bitcoin, this is the first confiscation of cryptocurrency in a criminal context for British police.
Kwiatkowski was arrested by police in October 2022 and convicted of 19 counts, including copyright infringement and concealment. He was imprisoned for 18 months. If he does not pay the amount owed, he will have to serve another 18 months in prison.
“Kwiatkowski developed a complex scheme to sell products that did not belong to him. Our work does not end with the simple arrest, and we will make sure that Kwiatkowski can no longer benefit from the money he made through criminal means,” Daryl said. Fryatt, an inspector with the British police’s specialist online hacking unit.
Source: BFM TV
