The United States Department of Justice has shared some news regarding Team-Xecuter, which doesn't appear to be a good sign for the company. Gary Bowser, known on GBAtemp as garyopa, Max Louarn, and Yuanning Chen have all been arrested in Seattle, Washington. The US Government classifies these men as "leaders of one of the world's most notorious videogame piracy groups", and will be facing a federal indictment charge, for the selling of illegal hardware that facilitates piracy.

“These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers – even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games,” said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. “This conduct doesn’t just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry.”

The FBI has also been involved, with each defendant to be charged under 11 felony counts, ranging from wire fraud, trafficking circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. One of the defendants, Louarn, has not yet been extradited, though Bowser has, where he was seen in the court hearing that took place today.

In September 2020, Louarn and Bowser were arrested abroad in connection with the charges in this case. The United States will seek Louarn’s extradition to stand trial in the United States. Bowser was arrested and deported from the Dominican Republic, and appeared today in federal court, in New Jersey.

Each defendant is charged with 11 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Source

 

[Deleted member 534671]

no they haven't , stop posting misleading shit.

http://xecuter-sxos.com/en/

is still up in Uk

Be careful he’ll respond telling you he’s Dutch and the response (correcting him he’s posting untrue bollocks) is “unwarranted and unneeded advice”
I’ve already told him he’s chatting shit.

 

[sudeki300]

Be careful he’ll respond telling you he’s Dutch and the response (correcting him he’s posting untrue bollocks) is “unwarranted and unneeded advice”
I’ve already told him he’s chatting shit.

thats why i felt the need to post, talking crap about the UK and being rude to a fellow brit is not on.

 

[DrunkenMonk]

All the hostility in the scene, meanwhile Nintendo in a courtroom:

there's no denying that a paper clip is a tool that enables piracy

 

[hippy dave]

I'm dutch so thanks for the unwarranted and unneeded advice fellas.

Could learn to bloody check the lil' country flag below my name...

FWIW flags don't show on mobile.

 

[cashboxz01]

I'd just like to remind everyone who's speculating on reasons why NNO caught these guys at a specific time (new console, many more AAA titles, etc.), that piracy on the switch really isn't an issue for them, as less than 1 out of 50,000 switches is modded (yes I pulled the number out of my ass). There really aren't nearly as much of a percentage of NNO switches modded as most people here think. It's nowhere near PSP/DC/XBOX/PS3/3DS. Those systems were king of piracy due to softmods. Heck, even the NDS became a piracy haven near the end of its lifecycle because of the $7 DS TT cards. Most people are not willing to open their systems to mod them. Most people are also not willing to spend $100-150 to get their systems modded and then get banned. I swear reading replies in this thread, most people think that everyone who has a switch has it modded, and NNO is really cracking down because its losing billions of dollars.

 

[sudeki300]

what is the NNO, please someone tell me

 

[Flying Scotsman]

i also don't think china gives a shit about copyright.

They don't which is the funny thing. This is why so many knock offs come from China (because it's a copyright wild west).

BMW tried suing a Chinese car manufacturer because they copied (quite blatantly) some of BMW's designs... and lost.

 

[Tumbleweed]

this just goes to show that being greedy is what gets you caught!

Was chatting to someone few weeks back about how "the scene" has changed so much over the years... there was a time the "hackers" did this for either FUN or for BRAGGING RIGHTS... now its just all about money... now we either have arrests or bloody sell outs! Soon there will be no scene left or it will go further underground.

Not sure if any of you have realised but all the arrests for any piracy related stuff (games, films, iptv etc) the only reason these people are arrested is because they are CHARGING MONEY FOR A SERVICE... its pretty simple stop asking/forcing for money and ask for DONATIONS!

At first I've even liked your commentary because you said pretty much everything that's actually happening but you fucked up in the end with the donations...which is pretty much what is happening with p2p cracker scene and the so-called crowdfunding it's just wrong too m8y.

You do it for the pleasure of doing it or you don't, if you have support because people will value your work, great, that will surely happen but crowd-funding is just a disguise to earn money/profit

 

[Meatloaf916]

I'd just like to remind everyone who's speculating on reasons why NNO caught these guys at a specific time (new console, many more AAA titles, etc.), that piracy on the switch really isn't an issue for them, as less than 1 out of 50,000 switches is modded (yes I pulled the number out of my ass). There really aren't nearly as much of a percentage of NNO switches modded as most people here think. It's nowhere near PSP/DC/XBOX/PS3/3DS. Those systems were king of piracy due to softmods. Heck, even the NDS became a piracy haven near the end of its lifecycle because of the $7 DS TT cards. Most people are not willing to open their systems to mod them. Most people are also not willing to spend $100-150 to get their systems modded and then get banned. I swear reading replies in this thread, most people think that everyone who has a switch has it modded, and NNO is really cracking down because its losing billions of dollars.

agreed nintendo isn't losing billons of dollars. they operate in the realm of hundreds of millions even though they have billions of dollars that they saved up in their hundred years of existence. People are very dramatic and need to chill.

 

[Deleted member 534671]

thats why i felt the need to post, talking crap about the UK and being rude to a fellow brit is not on.

God speed.

 

[RiPPERD]

At first I've even liked your commentary because you said pretty much everything that's actually happening but you fucked up in the end with the donations...which is pretty much what is happening with p2p cracker scene and the so-called crowdfunding it's just wrong too m8y.

You do it for the pleasure of doing it or you don't, if you have support because people will value your work, great, that will surely happen but crowd-funding is just a disguise to earn money/profit

the donations part is voluntary rather than forced... and lets face it 99% of users dont donate anyway lol
i guess im just old skool and i like doing it to help others i never charge for my work and never would... not that my releases are anywhere near the tech level of the "jailbreakers" but i do my bit to keep the old scene going lol

 

[iialaq01]

If they receive a petition signed by million or more, will they be released?

 

[sudeki300]

If they receive a petition signed by million or more, will they be released?

no way in hell

 

[lemonmaster]

If they receive a petition signed by million or more, will they be released?

ftw when you get a life sentence only to get released for getting 8 million signatures on change.org

 

[sudeki300]

ftw when you get a life sentence only to get released for getting 8 million signatures on change.org

or if your a kardashian.

 

[TheZander]

Haha. Internet tough guy. You would shit in your pants the moment the cuffs went on.

No i wouldn't. I'd say that's all got you coppers? I'll take your bullets

 

[Imancol]

The slew of options you speak of are exactly why tx are in this position as well as charging real money to use the slew of options.

To do xci and hard drive loading meant they used Nintendo's sdk. Tx didn't care and abused all resources. Great for end user but stupid on there behalf.

Atmos/scriesm has absolutely zero interest in piracy. None. That why there is no xci there is no sigpatches and so on.

Tx did this for pure profit and now there paying for it. Many home-brew developers could program xci but again they open themselves up to be in tx shoes and get a free pass to jail too. But no one in the homebrew community wants that and that's why you don't see atmos with xci.

And this is the literal reason why a launcher like Wiiflow or USBLoader has not been developed. You can use Atmosphere and launch your installed titles if you get the patches by yourself, it is only copy and you can play, and with a MicroSD with enough space (64GB, 128GB) you will have more titles to play ... the USB, .XCI , it was obtained from the Nintendo SDK, USB from the Devkit, Cartridge Emulation (.XCI) from the SDK and that's literally property theft and piracy.

Atmosphere has followed an ethical development, under licenses that do not violate that of Nintendo or others, and if you are thinking to launch home applications, non-commercial games, and it is easy to patch for FREE to play with backups.

 

[Agusto101]

No big deal, probably sx still are going to update and atmos is pretty much safe because it don't generate any kind of money it doesn't matter if it still is piracy.

 

[Joe88]

For whats its worth even if there are no updates, you still got a good quality jig and dongle loader for third party things like atmos.

I paid like $35 for the pro and got a free switch case with it. I got more than my money out it.

I still think someone else will just take over, someone is china most likely. We will see after the next switch fw thats breaks sxos.

 

[Imancol]

you can blame the lack of paul being involved for this, paul was smarter.. hence why all original xbox xecuter chips shipped with a linux bios.

It's not very smart to get the SDK and other tools leaked even before the first xbox was released for Xecuter to use to tweak the console.

It is what Xecuter has always been dedicated to. Steal code, modify it and sell it.