Two Leaders of Notorious Videogame Piracy Group Arrested
A Department of Justice (DOJ) press release dated October 2, 2020 exposes two leaders in “one of the world’s most notorious videogame piracy groups,” Team Xecuter, who were recently arrested and are in custody facing charges filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
Max Louarn, 48, a French national of Avignon, France; Yuanning Chen, 35, a Chinese national of Shenzhen, China; and Gary Bowser, 51, a Canadian national of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic were allegedly the leaders of a crime organization that illegally developed and sold illegal devices that hacked videogame consoles and allowed users to play pirated copies of the videogames. Several consoles were hacked including Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and the Sony Playstation Classic. Louarn and Bowser have been arrested.
U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington said of the defendants, “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. This conduct doesn’t just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry.”
Team Xecuter is composed of over a dozen members from around the world. They exploit vulnerabilities in video game consoles, design circumvention devices, and market and manufacture the products for sale. The group hid its illegal activities by claiming to support gamers who wanted to design their own games for non-commercial use, but they primarily preloaded hundreds of pirated games to the consoles and even required customers to purchase a fake license to access these games.
Special Agent in Charge Raymond Duda of the FBI’s Seattle Field Office said of the scam, “Imagine if something you invented was stolen from you and then marketed and sold to customers around the world. That is exactly what Team Xecuter was doing. This is a perfect example of why the FBI has made the prevention of the theft of intellectual property a priority. These arrests should send a message to would-be pirates that the FBI does not consider these crimes to be a game.”
This case is being prosecuted by Senior Counsel Frank Lin of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Francis Franze-Nakamura and Brian Werner of the Western District of Washington, with significant and ongoing assistance from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.