Bulgaria's Organized Crime Unit Shuts 2 Major Torrent Websites

Anti-mafia police have shut down two of Bulgaria's largest torrent sites in an operation aimed at stemming the illegal distribution of copyrighted music and films.

The officers of the Chief Directorate for Combating Organized Crime raided sites located in Sofia, Pernik and Gabrovo and detained two people identified as the owners, one of them a minor, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The authorities seized computer systems and hardware.

The damages incurred by the sites, which had reportedly been among the top 5 in the country and had been functioning for over three years, are yet to be calculated.

The raid was part of an ongoing campaign of the Interior Ministry against Internet-based piracy.

According to reports of bTV, the raided torrent websites were p2pbg.com and elit-bg.com, both of them using servers based in Germany.

Torrentfreak.com informs that the two sites had a combined userbases of at least 750 000 members.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!