After failing to hand himself over to authorities as required in January, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm lost his chance to serve his sentence in an open prison. As a final surrender deadline looms, it's been revealed that interest charges being applied since May 2006 have boosted the damages award against the site's founders by 60% to nearly $11 million, a huge $4.06 million uplift.

As revealed earlier this month, Swedish authorities have now decided where the founders of The Pirate Bay plus one time site ‘financier’ Carl Lundström will serve their sentences.

There is, however, the still unresolved situation involving Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm.

From the date of the first appeal in September 2010, Svartholm (aka Anakata) has been somewhat of an enigma. First, he failed to attend that hearing due to an illness which left him too sick to leave hospital in Cambodia.

Then, despite having backed up his original absence with a medical certificate, Svartholm failed to appear at a subsequent hearing prompting an announcement last year that the District Court ruling of 2009 against him (1 year in prison and a share of the damages) would be made permanent.

Svartholm should have returned to Sweden to begin serving his sentence January 2nd this year, but again he was nowhere to be seen. The authorities had been prepared for him to spend his sentence in the reportedly fairly relaxed Svartsjö open prison where it’s said that inmates enjoy a range of sports, saunas, and a solarium.

But the no-show means that Svartholm is now required to serve his sentence in the Category 2 Mariefred prison roughly 65 km outside Stockholm. He now has until April 18th to hand himself in before police begin looking for him.

“When the person fails to appear, we make an inquiry via the police,” says Chief Officer of Probation Helena Lundberg. “We hope they are apprehended and taken to prison.”

On recent form it seems increasingly unlikely that the 27-year-old will appear, with one-time Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde speculating recently that Svartholm may even be dead.

Sunde’s situation is also unclear. Although he is required to spend his 8 month sentence in the Västervik Norra prison, his lawyer Peter Althin has hinted that there may some sort of appeal in the spring.

Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, was told he will spend 10 months in Kirseberg prison in Malmö, Sweden. Neij has made no secret of his time in Thailand during recent years but his current whereabouts are unknown.

Soon-to-be 52-year-old businessman Carl Lundström will spend his 4 month ‘jail’ sentence in the community, alternating his time between a Gothenburg apartment and a work placement.

Finally, the not insignificant matter of money, specifically the 46 million kronor the Pirate Bay four are required to hand over to the movie and recording company plaintiffs to compensate them for their claimed losses. That’s roughly $6.9 million dollars but it doesn’t stop there since there is a significant amount of interest to be added.

As of a month ago the amount owed had jumped nearly 60% to 73 million kronor – $10.97 million. Or put it another way, an extra $1 million each for Neij, Sunde, Svartholm and Lundström.

“According to the Enforcement Authority, the interest has been ticking since 31st May 2006, which is the date that ends the period in which according to the prosecutors their crimes were committed,” Swedish journalist Arvid Jurjaks informed TorrentFreak.

But as the founders have made clear for a long time, this amount could be a billion each, they don’t plan on paying anything. The authorities simply can’t find any assets in their names in Sweden. They did find 225,000 kronor ($33,800) belonging to Lundström, but the successful businessman probably won’t worry too much about that.