“I woke up to the sound of a door breaking. I got out of bed and saw screaming people running upstairs towards me. I've tried closing the bedroom door. My wife woke up and started screaming loudly in panic…”
"My first thought was that these people were thieves, or maybe something worse..."
During the summer of 2017, the French authorities achieved great success with the closure of T411a popular semi-private torrent tracker with over five million registered members.
Despite France's three strikes law, better known as Hadopi, the site managed to earn a place among the 50 most visited sites in the country. That reign ended abruptly, surprising many regular users.
There were also other surprises. When news of the closure became public, it turned out that T411 was not strictly run by a French team. In fact, two of the alleged "brains" behind the operation were Ukrainian, while the site itself was hosted on Swedish servers.
Following the initial arrests, authorities have not released any additional information. And now, almost five years later, it turns out that one of the main Ukrainian suspects is still in limbo, not knowing if he will have his day in court.
Today, the former T411 systems operator is willing to share his story with us. This is done on condition of anonymity, to avoid problems with future employers. We agreed to this because we believe it is important to share his story with a wider audience, and we will refer to him as "Alex" instead.
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It is important to realize that this is a one-sided account and TF was unable to independently verify all statements. That said, this story is not so much about details as it is about feelings, as will soon become apparent.
This is not an attempt to create sympathy for Alex or judge who is right or wrong. That depends on the courts. The main goal is to show the personal stories behind a 2017 headline that most people have forgotten about.
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A successful startup
Alex's participation in T411 begins in 2009. At that time he was still living in Ukraine, where he worked as a technical head of the system administration department in a large outsourcing company. The Ukrainian company worked for clients from all over the world and T411 was presented as a new regular project.
The owner of T411 wanted to optimize the site and servers because the site was growing rapidly at the time. After inspecting the servers, Alex decided to take the lead on the project and contacted the owner directly.
From a technical perspective, Alex saw the torrent site as a challenge that required some non-standard solutions. However, he never actually discussed anything non-technical with the owner and couldn't understand much of the front end as it was all in French.
In 2010 Alex left the outsourcing company and moved to Sweden hoping to find new opportunities in Europe. When he notified T411 of this decision, the torrent site asked him to continue his work independently. Without any objection from his former employer, that is exactly what he did.
In the years that followed, the association continued. Alex took the lead in making the backend run smoothly and even hired additional freelancers when needed. He felt like being part of a successful startup.
“It worked like a small successful startup. I never hid my involvement in this project and did not treat it as if I was doing anything illegal. I did not participate in the management of the content of the site, that part was done by the French moderators”, Alex tells us.
“I was proud of this project because I implemented its complex technical setup through non-standard state-of-the-art technologies. I still have an old copy of my CV from 2013, which I used to find work in Sweden, and t411 was on the main list of projects I described there.”
Alex continued to work on other projects besides T411, but the first one took up most of his time. However, the fact that copyright owners complained about the torrent tracker was not a surprise. In fact, Alex had to periodically remove torrent files from the database in response to removal notices.
The site owner said that it took too long for the moderators to delete all the torrents reported through the admin panel, so Alex had to do it directly from the database. At some point, that too became a hassle, so a special tool was created to automate things.
“Incoming DMCA emails were automatically acknowledged and all listed torrents were removed from the site,” Alex tells us. "This system made me believe that I did not do anything illegal and that the site respects copyright."
Rights holders and law enforcement officials clearly saw things differently, as Alex would soon learn too.
The arrest of the terrorist
On a summer morning in 2017, at approximately 7 a.m., a handful of police cars pulled into a quiet neighborhood in a Swedish city. A special police force, from a department that also handles terrorist threats, was about to enter a house where a family with an 8-month-old baby was still fast asleep.
“June 27, 2017 was the worst day of my entire life,” says Alex.
“I woke up to the sound of a door breaking. I got out of bed and saw screaming people running upstairs towards me. I've tried closing the bedroom door. My wife woke up and started screaming loudly in panic…”
"My first thought was that these people were thieves, or maybe something worse..."
After the initial panic, Alex was taken to a police car where he was told that his arrest was related to T411. And to his surprise, the officers also arrested his wife. Meanwhile, the house was searched for evidence of possible crimes.
The arrested couple were taken into custody where they were questioned in detail. Although Alex was clearly involved with the site, his wife was not. The problem was that Alex had used his PayPal account for his freelance work, as Ukrainian accounts could not receive incoming payments at the time.
This tragic mistake resulted in a family drama that was nothing short of a nightmare for the young family.
The baby
While Alex and his wife were in custody, their 8-month-old son was taken by a neighbor. After a few hours, the police went to pick up the baby with someone from social care. The neighbor was informed that the boy would probably not see his parents again for a long time.
The baby was then placed in a temporary social care facility. Fortunately, however, the PayPal issue was resolved and Alex's wife was released and reunited with the baby two days later.
Looking back, emotions are still running high.
“After my wife accepted it again, she stopped accepting breastfeeding due to stress. This is how the police actions interrupted the natural process between the mother and her son. Sorry for the emotions here, but I just can't accept this," Alex tells us.
It turns out that law enforcement had already arranged a foster family for the baby beforehand, assuming the couple would be locked up for a long time.
“What frustrates me and my wife the most is that the Swedish police prepared the arrest for more than a month and didn't even check if we have any relatives in Ukraine who can take care of our son,” says Alex.
“If the regular police had knocked on my door, I would have cooperated. That would be the same outcome for them, but without life trauma for our entire family."
french prison
The developer eventually spent about two weeks in Swedish custody, where he was allowed to see his family. This was hard and emotional, but things were about to get worse: Sweden had agreed to extradite Alex to France.
The move to France occurred on July 14, which is a national holiday. This means that the process was slow. Finally, in Paris, he was thrown into a cold, dirty jail room for a night in custody with some rather unpleasant company.
During his transfer, Alex also talked to some French police officers who were very familiar with the torrent site.
“I had some brief conversations with the policemen who transferred me. They didn't speak much English but enough to tell me they used t411. They said it was a good site before the lockdown and that they had to move to another site.”
“They also told me how they got the Hadopi claims back home, but they just ignored them. That was fun to hear,” adds Alex.
The time in prison was hard, but Alex was happy that there were some Russian-speaking people he could talk to. Although these were experienced criminals, he still felt good.
“The prisoners in my department were mainly related to drug crimes, robberies and some people were murderers. Luckily, most of them weren't aggressive,” says Alex.
“I shared my cell with a major drug dealer, who was sentenced to seven years in prison and was awaiting an appeal. He was a very kind and well-organized person, he helped me with many things, he explained the prison rules to me and he helped me fill out various documents in French”.
Unfortunately, there was no option to reunite with his family; no phone calls either. They could communicate through letters but these could take a long time to arrive because they had to be analyzed first.
In addition to missing his family, Alex also missed life and coding. Newspapers and television were in French, so he felt disconnected. Meanwhile, he could almost feel his coding skills degrading.
Finally, Alex's first official hearing took place after five months and about a week later he was released, pending further investigation.
life in limbo
After his return to Sweden, Alex focused on his family and work, hoping to put everything that happened behind him. This was easier said than done. On paper, the French investigation is still open, which means things could suddenly get worse at any time.
After almost five years, there are still many frozen properties. There are claims on the house, the car and a bank account, which are regularly prolonged. Alex's wife eventually got her share unclaimed, but the family still feels trapped.
“The main effect for our family is that we cannot sell our house to move to another. We are prisoners in this house and we do not feel completely free as normal citizens.”
Ideally, the family would like to purchase a new home in a more rural area. They both work from home and would like to enjoy nature more. Also, the old house never felt safe again after the traumatic arrest.
Moving to a new place has also become a priority now that the family has grown.
“We had a second child in 2019, and more recently we welcomed our parents from Ukraine. They escaped the war and there is no guarantee that they will be able to return in the next few years because many of the houses are destroyed.”
To our knowledge, no one has yet been convicted in connection with the T411 investigation. The original owner of the site used a fake name, but was presumably from Canada. Authorities tracked him down, but it's not clear if he was arrested or located.
Alex has no idea how much longer he will have to wait before his case is finalized, but in light of current events in Ukraine, he is no longer afraid. That's why he also shares his experiences today.
“I am ready for a fair trial where the arguments will be reasonable and all the evidence will be provided”, concludes Alex.
