Criminal found through World of Warcraft

It seems that law enforcement agencies are getting more creative with ways of leveraging dug up information about wanted criminals.

Using the knowledge of a previously seemingly inconsequential detail such as a game that the suspect is addicted to, Matt Robertson, a sheriff’s deputy from Howard County has been able to zero in on the location of a man that has run off to Canada to avoid getting arrested and charged for dealing with controlled substances and marijuana.

Kokomo Perspective reports that the game in question was World of Warcraft, and Robertson sent a subpoena to Blizzard Entertainment, asking for their help to track him down. “They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,” said Roberson.

After a waiting for months, Blizzard did reply and sent the requested information: the suspect’s IP address, account information, billing address and preferred server. Connecting the IP address to a location was then just a matter of entering the longitude and latitude into Google Earth.

The suspect was living in Ottawa. The sheriff’s deputy then notified the U.S. Marshals, who then got in touch with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Border Services Agency. They arrested and deported him to the U.S., where he will be facing the charges he run away from.