According to U.K. prosecutors, a computer hacker who stole unreleased music from American rapper Lil Uzi Vert and British pop sensation Ed Sheeran has been given an 18-month prison sentence.
Adrian Kwiatkowski, 23, from Ipswich in southern England, gained access to the musicians’ cloud-based accounts and sold their music for cryptocurrency on the dark web. According to City of London Police, who looked into the matter, Kwiatkowski made 147,000 pounds ($131,000) from the deals.
“Kwiatkowski had complete disregard for the musicians’ creativity and hard work producing original songs and the subsequent loss of earnings,’’ said Joanne Jakymec of the Crown Prosecution Service. “He selfishly stole their music to make money for himself.”
2019 saw the start of an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which connected Kwiatkowski to the email address used for Spirdark’s cryptocurrency account. It then revealed that his home address was the IP address of the computer used to break into one of the accounts.
Kwiatkowski was detained by the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit in September 2019 following additional investigation.
“Cybercrime knows no borders, and this individual executed a complex scheme to steal unreleased music in order to line his own pockets,’’ Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr said.