18-Year-Old Modern Warfare 2 Pirate Was Arrested


Recommended Posts

There are a lot of games that end up on the market well before their official release dates and there's nothing the publishers and developers can do at this point but accept the fact and deal with the losses. Well, Activision will have none of that and has decided to take a hands-on approach on the smuggling business. When an ad for several Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundles surfaced on Craigslist, the company decided to contact a private investigation firm to deal with the matter.

IPCybercrime.com, the Dallas-based firm, responded to the ad and requested to purchase said bundles, but also spotted another ad. The seller claimed to be a stock boy for a major game retailer and the two ads were put together by the company when the two suppliers of pirated Modern Warfare 2 copies were found to be related via a social network. The private eyes relayed the information to Activison that confronted the two ?dealers,? whom, faced with reality, decided to give the games back to the retailer's loss-prevention staff.

What was a narrow escape for these two was a bit of a more dramatic scenario for Christian Del Amo. The investigators found one of his posts on an Xbox piracy forum, in which he asked people to donate him the funds to purchase one of those ?early? MW2 bundles. What would seem like simple naivety quickly turned into insidious intentions, as he claimed that he would need the copy in order to crack it and redistribute it online.

IPCybercrime tracked his e-mail address to a Facebook account, from where it obtained his cellphone number and found out what the 18-year-old's name was. The police department was contacted and it put together a sting to apprehend the young man. The game was delivered by an intermediate that eventually led it back to Del Amo. He was arrested and is currently held in the Miami Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. This wasn't his first incident regarding piracy, as he was known to have sold modded, 250GB Xbox 360 hard drives pre-loaded with some 125 hacked games. Even with its incisive actions, Activision wasn't able to keep Modern Warfare 2 from reaching the net, and, apparently, the Xbox 360 version is already available on several torrent sites.[/Sourceurce : Softpedia

activision in their failed attempt....first they **** of their loyal pc fans then they try to go all "RIAA" on everyone...can't wait to see what they do when someone cracks iwnet in the new game

Why is it fail?

When people sell illegal copies of disc I think it's totally fare to take legal action.

Pirate is a bit of a misleading term in this article if you ask me. They were legitimate copies, they just happen to be stolen from a retailer. Pirating generally tends to suggest an illegitimate copy, rather than an official boxed one. Bit of FUD if you ask me.

Pirate is a bit of a misleading term in this article if you ask me. They were legitimate copies, they just happen to be stolen from a retailer. Pirating generally tends to suggest an illegitimate copy, rather than an official boxed one. Bit of FUD if you ask me.

I agree and whatever he did was retarded. Specially posting this in Craigslist... :no:

Thanks Activision for giving me another reason to not buy MW2.

what? why? because they busted some idiot teen who wanted to make a buck out of illegal copies? what harm has been done to you that you decided not to buy the game?

TBH, I don't believe you were ever going to buy it...

People complaining about Activision taking action are either retards or repeatedly pirate games.

Maybe both.

Give me a break. This kid is clearly a moron, but he doesn't deserve to go to jail for what he did.

what? why? because they busted some idiot teen who wanted to make a buck out of illegal copies? what harm has been done to you that you decided not to buy the game?

TBH, I don't believe you were ever going to buy it...

He didn't want to make a buck off illegal copies. That was a separate incident involving different people. He just wanted to get donations so he could buy it and share it online.

Pirate is a bit of a misleading term in this article if you ask me. They were legitimate copies, they just happen to be stolen from a retailer. Pirating generally tends to suggest an illegitimate copy, rather than an official boxed one. Bit of FUD if you ask me.
What was a narrow escape for these two was a bit of a more dramatic scenario for Christian Del Amo. The investigators found one of his posts on an Xbox piracy forum, in which he asked people to donate him the funds to purchase one of those ?early? MW2 bundles. What would seem like simple naivety quickly turned into insidious intentions, as he claimed that he would need the copy in order to crack it and redistribute it online.

IPCybercrime tracked his e-mail address to a Facebook account, from where it obtained his cellphone number and found out what the 18-year-old's name was. The police department was contacted and it put together a sting to apprehend the young man. The game was delivered by an intermediate that eventually led it back to Del Amo. He was arrested and is currently held in the Miami Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. This wasn't his first incident regarding piracy, as he was known to have sold modded, 250GB Xbox 360 hard drives pre-loaded with some 125 hacked games. Even with its incisive actions, Activision wasn't able to keep Modern Warfare 2 from reaching the net, and, apparently, the Xbox 360 version is already available on several torrent sites.

Thats the piracy part.

Actually I am surpirsed that if he was known for selling modded 250G Hard drives with 125 hacked games on it, he wasn't already in deep trouble. He probably was on probation, and the MW2 thing was the final straw.

the title makes it sound like he downloaded it an then a swat team arrived...

what actually happend is he physically PAID for stollen goods and then took money for doing this on the understanding he was going to copy and re distribute the thing!

i'd hardly compare it to downloading a copy for personal use.... not that thats ok either...

So you think that the guy who pirated the game did the right thing? I think he is just another idiot.

Well let me clarify. I do not agree with intellectual property rights, so piracy is a non-issue for me, though I do avoid it not for moral reasons but just to avoid the consequences.

That said, I am completely against real theft, such as a stock worker stealing copies as described, that is both stupid and wrong. So I would agree, he is just another idiot, but he is not the one trying to sell me a game, so I have little else to comment on him.

Now lets consider Activision, from what I gathered the copies were stolen form a retailer, not Activision itself. I'm assuming Activision was already paid for these copies, and lost nothing but the IP argument of the "potential sale" via the copying that would ensue after the theft (which can just as easily happen with any legally obtained copy). That to me seems like the only reason they got involved was to publicly make an example of piracy, not theft.

Now when the company is spending it's resources on private detectives for the sake of making an anti-piracy scare tactic instead of spending it on resources to make their product better, I will be critical of them and I won't buy their product.

**actually reads the article** he wasn't a "real" pirate

He's a real pirate or he's being accused of being one. The original copies were real but supposedly he wanted them for the sake of copying them.

I am against theft and for copying.

I don't blame Activision at all for protecting their work in these situations. Violating the release date is serious business with games nowadays and the guy in the story should have known that. What irks me most about the release date breakers is not the piracy aspect of it but that the endings of a game could get given away before people have played the game. I could care less how a person gets a game or when just don't spoil it for me before I get to play it lol.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • agenda pushing is... hiring women? you are insane. also low iq.
    • AIMP 5.40 Build 2721 by Razvan Serea AIMP is a powerful audio player that allows you to listen to your favorite music with an outstanding sound quality. Its appearance resembles that of another classical audio player (Winamp). The program includes a 20-band equalizer, a visualization window to display rhythmic visual effects and a playlist editor to organize your audio files. A nice fading effect makes your list of songs look like an endless music loop and a handy volume normalizing feature avoids drastic volume changes between tracks. Also, the players main functions can be conveniently controlled by global hotkeys. Besides playing music, AIMP features three extra utilities which also enable you to record any sound on your computer, convert audio files from one format to another and view or edit tags. AIMP is based on the well-known audio engine BASS, so its easy to connect new plug-ins (from the plug-in library included in the program) and expand the players functionality. Main Features and Functions: Multi-Format Playback: Supports numerous audio formats, including CDA, AAC, AC3, APE, DTS, FLAC, IT, MIDI, MO3, MOD, M4A, M4B, MP1, MP2, MP3, MPC, MTM, OFR, OGG, OPUS, RMI, S3M, SPX, TAK, TTA, UMX, WAV, WMA, WV, XM, DSF, DFF, MKA, AA3, AT3, OMA, WebM, MDZ, ITZ, S3Z, XMZ, AIFF, and MPEG-DASH (YouTube). CUE Sheet Support: Enables the use of CUE sheets for managing audio tracks. Output Support: Compatible with DirectSound, ASIO, WASAPI, and WASAPI Exclusive output methods. 32-Bit Audio Processing: Utilizes 32-bit audio processing for optimal sound quality. Internet Radio: Allows listening to internet radio stations in OGG, WAV, MP3, AAC, and AAC+ formats, with the capability to capture streams in various formats. Bookmarks and Playback Queue: Facilitates creating bookmarks and managing a playback queue. Rating and Auto-Marks: Collects statistics on track listening and automatically calculates ratings and marks for listened tracks. Plugin Support: Allows the addition of new utilities or extensions to existing features through plugins. Built-in Scrobbler: Supports Last.fm, Libre.fm, and ListenBrainz services for scrobbling. Cloud Integration: Supports OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox, Облако@mail.ru, Яндекс.Диск, and custom WebDAV clouds. Podcasts: Offers podcast support for subscribing and listening. Hotkeys: Allows configuration of local and global hotkeys. Multi-User Mode Support: Supports multiple users working on one computer. Multi-Language Interface: Provides a multi-language interface. 4K and High DPI Support: Supports scale factors of 125%, 150%, 175%, and 200% for high-resolution displays. Flexible Program Options: Offers customizable program settings. Flexible UI: Charm UI: A modern flat-style skin with 4K and High DPI support. Bliss 4K: A skin-transformer from AIMP4 included in the installation package. Pandemic: The classic skin from AIMP3 included in the installation package. User Skins: Access to a catalog of user-created skins. Sound Effects: 20-Band Equalizer and Built-in Sound Effects: Includes Reverb, Flanger, Chorus, Pitch, Tempo, Echo, Speed, Bass, Enhancer, and Voice Remover effects with flexible settings. Volume Normalization: Features peak-based normalization and Replay Gain, along with logarithmic and loudness-compensated volume control. Mixing Options: Offers Fade In/Fade Out, cross-mixing, and pause between tracks. Silence Remover: Removes silence from tracks for a seamless listening experience. Music Library: Music Library: Organizes music files, allows setting marks for listened tracks, and keeps playback statistics. Smart Playlist: Creates playlists based on content from the Music Library database, with filtering and grouping capabilities. Playlists: Multiple Playlists: Supports working with multiple playlists simultaneously. Powerful View Settings: Allows data display customization, track grouping, and separate settings for each playlist. Content Protection: Provides the ability to block content from changes. File Search: Enables searching files across all opened playlists. AIMP 5.40 Build 2721 changelog: Audio converter: WavPack - support for 32-bit float samples format General: localizations has been updated General: WavPack codec has been updated to v5.9 Plugins: scrobbler - Last.fm - in case of an access denied error, the Track Info dialog displays links to web-version of the catalog Fixed: General - error creating a file in a folder created by template if the folder name ends with a dot Fixed: general - menu cannot be scrolled via mouse wheel if the "scroll inactive windows when I hover over them" option is switched off Fixed: General - port number is not extracted from URL if there is no "/" after the port token (regression 5.40) Fixed: audio converter - statistics are not taken into account if the "delete sources files" option is switched on and target folder equals to source Fixed: audio converter - dither does not switched off when processing files in 24-to-24-bit format Fixed: Sound engine - VST - changing the sample rate leads to certain plugins to hanging up Fixed: player - does not read disc numbers for CUE that specified as custom tag fields stored in the audio file Fixed: player - manual invoking the jump to next track action does not work if the next file is not exists and the "track repeat" option is switched on Fixed: plugins - BASS_AAC - does not play certain files to the end Fixed: plugins - CDDA - MusicBrainz - wrong artist name is extracted for certain releases Fixed: issues from incoming crash-reports Download: AIMP 64-bit | Standalone | ~20.0 MB (Freeware) Download: AIMP 32-bit | Standalone View: AIMP Website | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Notion is shutting down its email client one year after launch by David Uzondu In April 2025, Notion launched Notion Mail, an AI-powered email client that acted as a customizable overlay for your existing accounts. Instead of replacing Gmail entirely, it reimagined how users interacted with their inboxes by offering features like intelligent auto-labeling alongside automated calendar scheduling. Now, a little over a year later, Notion has announced that it is shutting it all down on September 22. Since Notion Mail is a frontend client, most of your Gmail data will remain safe inside your Google account, but the company said that you must export stuff specific to Notion Mail, like snippets, custom auto-label instructions, email drafts, and scheduled drafts, before the deadline. Starting today, June 25, you can export that data directly from the app or the web interface, and this grace period will last all the way until September 21. Once September 22 arrives, Notion will permanently delete all unsaved local assets, including files you attached to snippets. Your existing database syncs and mail blocks will persist, though they will stop receiving new messages after the shutdown. Notion advises that if you or your company operate within a regulated environment, you must transition off earlier than the general shutdown date to maintain compliance. Companies that rely on HIPAA coverage face an even tighter timeline and must transition away from the platform by June 30th. Notion, in its X announcement post, basically said that it doesn't see the point of maintaining a standalone email client, especially when users have shifted their habits toward automation. The platform pointed to its Notion agents, which it claims "more than half of Notion Mail users" already employ to manage emails without ever opening an actual inbox, so it is "going all in" on using these agents to run your inbox. Notion introduced Notion Agents last September at the "Make With Notion" conference, giving users AI-powered digital assistants that can do stuff like run in the background on specific schedules (e.g., summarizing your daily open tasks every morning at 8 AM).
    • OK, but isn't nvidia still planning to cut off win10 support this year?
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      The_Focal_Point earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Year In
      Vistor earned a badge
      One Year In
    • First Post
      kinowa earned a badge
      First Post
    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      404
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      168
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      131
    4. 4
      Xenon
      72
    5. 5
      neufuse
      69
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!