Pirate Bay Founder Svartholm Warg arrested in Cambodia

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Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, co-founder of the popular ‘Pirate Bay’ file-sharing website, has been arrested in Cambodia. Warg was wanted by Sweden on copyright infringement charges after failing to report for a yearlong prison sentence.

Authorities arrested Warg in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in an apartment above The Cadillac Bar and Grill, a popular expat hangout, TorrentFreak.com reported. The Swedish government issued an international arrest warrant for Warg in January, after he failed to appear for the start of his jail term.“His arrest was made at the request of the Swedish government for a crime related to information technology," Cambodian police spokesperson Kirth Chantharith told AFP "We don't have an extradition treaty with Sweden but we'll look into our laws and see how we can handle this case.”Warg was one of four co-founders of BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay, which was temporarily taken offline by Swedish authorities after a court ruled in 2009 that all four individuals were guilty of encouraging copyright violations, and sentenced them to one year in Swedish prison and millions of dollars in fines. In a 2010 appeal against the verdict, the four maintained that no pirated material was actually distributed through their site. Three of the co-founders had their jail time reduced to sentences ranging from four to ten months, but their fines increased as a result of the appeal.Warg – who was living in Phnom Penh at the time – claimed that his health was too poor for him to attend his sentencing, prompting the judge to uphold his prison sentence and $1.1 million in fines. According to TorrentFreak, health issues have been a concern for Warg since 2010. He moved to Cambodia several years ago.