German Police Raid 121 Homes in Massive Pirate Site Crackdown

Four hundred police officers raided 121 homes today in a crackdown on the popular linking site Boerse.bz. The homes are believed to be connected to active uploaders of the site but no arrests have been made. The Boerse.bz website itself switched to a new provider but remains online.

boerseLast week news broke that police in Germany had carried out raids looking for the operators of Kinox.to, a manhunt that’s still ongoing.

The police actions are part of a large investigation into the local piracy scene in Germany which are today followed by one of the largest anti-piracy raids in history, involving the link forum Boerse.bz.

Police headquartered in Cologne have just announced that they carried out raids on 121 homes across the country. The police are gathering evidence on the operators of the popular linking forum and many of the raided homes are connected to active contributers to the site.

The police raids involved around 400 police officers who seized numerous computers, hard drives and other storage media. No arrests have been made thus far but some suspects have reportedly been willing to cooperate.

According to the authorities the suspects have shared a considerable number of movies, music albums, software and e-books via various cyberlockers and Boerse.bz over a long period of time.

These files were shared among an estimated 2.7 million Boerse.bz users and the uploaders reportedly earned referral commissions of up to several thousand euros per month through various cyberlockers.

The raids are the result of a criminal complaint filed by German anti-piracy outfit GVU. According to GVU, Boerse.bz is offering more than 100,000 files without permission from rightsholders, including 61,776 movies and 13,560 TV-shows.

Most of the evidence the police acted on was provided to the police by GVU, who say that Boerse.bz is a highly structured operation with a clear division of labor.

Despite the massive police force that was used in today’s raids and those of last week, both Kinox.to and Boerse.bz remain online. The alleged operators of the sites are still on the run.