Operation against YggTorrent: twelve people arrested by gendarmerie
French law enforcement has arrested a dozen individuals linked to a major illegal download platform, three months after the closure of its services.
Operation against YggTorrent: twelve people arrested by gendarmerie
French law enforcement announced on 2 July 2026 that it had arrested twelve people involved in the operation of a widely-used illegal file-sharing platform in Europe. The operation targeted the leadership structure of YggTorrent.
This platform, which had a community of more than 10 million users, had already ceased its activities in March of the same year. Its shutdown had been caused by a computer breach claimed by a hacker known by the name Grolum, who had succeeded in extracting all information from the site.
The gendarmerie's investigation, carried out over several years, concerned a different aspect, however. The police were interested in the individuals who managed and derived revenue from the activity, with no direct connection to the hacking that had brought operations to an end.
During this operation, the investigators seized computer equipment valued at approximately 45,000 euros. They also confiscated digital assets used, according to them, to finance the operation of the service.
Estimates indicate that millions of euros' worth of protected content was accessible via more than 50,000 torrent files. Since the disappearance of this site, no comparable alternative has emerged in the French-speaking online piracy sphere.
Source: Frandroid
Source: Google News LU FR