Copyright infringement blackmail scam targets mobile phone users

Swedish mobile users are being targeted with SMS messages accusing them for copyright infringement and urging them to pay a fine between 90 and 195 euros.

“You have downloaded copyrighted porn. Soon you will receive a civil claim. We ask you to pay it so that your illegal activity will not be a police matter. According to Swedish law, it is your duty to find out if the movies can be downloaded or not,” it says in the email following the SMS, which gives the number of a bank account held at the Valartis Bank in Liechtenstein into which the victims are instructed to deposit the money.

According to TorrentFreak, the victims seem to have visited via their mobile phones a malicious website that managed to extract information from their devices.

The email appears to be coming from Arcad World Corp., a company registered at a post office box in Stockholm, but also contains links to the website of the Antipiratbyran, Sweden’s anti-piracy bureau.

But the bureau says they have no connection with the scheme, and urge victims not to pay and to inform the police. So far, the bureau has been contacted by some 100 people across the country, asking them about the email.

The police is aware of the scam and has begun warning users about it, and said that they suspect that an individual from the southern part of the country is behind it.