A German district court in the western city of Aachen has handed down one of the harshest sentences for abetting copyright infringement: three years and 10 months in prison.

The 33-year-old alleged operator of the Russian-hosted torrent.to, who was named only as “Jens. R” in court documents, remains under investigation for fraudulent bankruptcy filings and embezzlement. Other than pleading not guilty, Jens R. did not offer a defense in the case and is expected to appeal.

Like similar sites, such as the Pirate Bay, the defendant was accused of selling ads against links to torrent files.

The German organization, the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringement (GVU), initiated legal proceedings back in 2006. The organization notes that the case could be appealed further. According to a GVU press release published Monday (Google Translate), the court suspects that Jens “still has funds in Swiss bank accounts and a Liechtenstein-based foundation,” which is a well-known means of hiding money via the tiny Alpine nation. A written record of the verdict has not yet been published by the court.

“With regard to flight risk due to the heavy sentence, Jens R.’s residence abroad, and continuing proceedings against him in the District Court of Aachen for bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement, the court immediately issued an arrest warrant for Jens R.” GVU’s account continues, noting that Jens R. was arrested in the courtroom.

Matthias Leonardy, the head of the GVU, compared this case to that of a similar site, Kino.to. Kino.to operators were arrested in 2011 and convicted in 2012.

“Here, this criminal operator has been convicted of intentionally exploiting the attractiveness of infringing media services on the Internet to generate illegal profits,” he said. “This businesslike form of cyber crime has much in common with Kino.to. We know also that the defendant knew Kino.to leaders. Torrent.to can thus serve as a blueprint for Kino.to be called.”

NOTE: To be clear, BitTorrent the protocol, has nothing to do with BitTorrent the company, which does not condone the actions of torrent.to, nor does it have any involvement with torrent.to.