About three days ago we reported about the quitting of Swedish scene group SVENNE (read it here if you haven’t). In their last NFO, SVENNE claimed to have made a deal with the Swedish Anti Piracy agency (Antipiratbyrån - APB) to avoid prosecution. While some doubted the accuracy of this claim, a news post on APB’s homepage seems to confirm what was said in SVENNE’s NFO. If what’s said on APB homepage is true, some SVENNE members who were busted had connections to veteran scene groups such as Razor1911, DRAMLiGHT, PUKKA, etc. Full news post is quoted below. Pay attention to the phrase in bold:

Sweden's leading warezgroups revealed

The Swedish Antipiracy Bureau has traced and identified the members of the releasegroups SVENNE and REDCROSS (previously SUBTiTLES). The groups have been the source of a large percentage of the illegal distribution of swedish, as well as forgein movies on the internet for the past ten years. Among the hundreds of movies that the group released are titles such as "Du levande" and "Onskan", and recently "Johan Falk - Vapenbröder" which the group released about two weeks before the DVD-premiere.

"It is a much welcomed and sought after announcement for me and many others in the movie business. The enormous damage that they have caused movie writers, actors, directors and other in Swedish movie industry cannot be repaired but hopefully this will lead to that creators can be better protected for this types of attacks in the future" says Joakim Hansson, writer and producer of among others Johan Falk movies.

The groups have announced their immediate cease of activitiy after the contact by the Antipiracy Bureau. The members were middleaged men and many of them working in the IT-industry. The leader of the group amongst other things were also the leader for the group NGR, but also a member of Razor1911, CLASSIC, ADHD, DAGGER, DMT and SWE6RUS, as well but not least DREAMLIGHT and PUKKA. Several of the members did also have connections to BBDVDR and a number of console-groups.
SVENNE and REDCROSS have been in a class of its own of the most organized and damaging Swedish releasegroups. Since the members have chosen to cooperate and provide us with valuable information the legal actions has not been taken, says Henrik Pontén.

Original version of this post may be found here.

Although it’s worrying to see some of the old school scene groups mentioned in the post, we don’t think any of those groups (other than SVENNE/REDCROSS) were hit hard. For example, Razor1911 pre’d Star_Wars_The_Clone_Wars_Republic_Heroes-Razor1911 only yesterday and there wasn’t even a mention of the bust in their NFO. In the meantime, APB has been celebrating as if they singled handedly brought the Swedish scene to a standstill – this however is far from the truth. If you log into a Swedish BitTorrent tracker, you’ll still see new releases (Swedish) being uploaded at a steady rate - not only those pre’d by scene groups but by P2P groups as well.


4 Comments

  1. Unknown // 10/08/2009 05:35:00 AM  

    thanks for the info. i like to know more about the scene =)
    i hope razor1911 don't get busted too, they are the _only_ group that still race with reloaded.

  2. PJCman2001 // 10/09/2009 07:58:00 PM  

    i agree with u very much Rodrigo, i hope neither one of those groups ever get busted, They are very good groups love what they release and they do a good job at that.

    A long time ago now when i first was learning how to bit torrent and use TopSites razor1911 was the first groups game that i downloaded and if i recall correctly it was a 3d hunting shooter game for the PC.

    So thanks to those groups be safe and among most all the other groups out there... thanks for all you do.

    Ya might be feuds online from p2p 2 scene 2 groups but it all boils down to we are all still human and do have life's and if u have a heart i don't want to see anyone get busted for anything cause that would suck.

  3. K.R // 10/11/2009 04:30:00 AM  

    Wallander.Prasten.2009.SWEDISH.PAL.DVDR-ToTheFallenMembersOfSvenne

    Hello Scene.. My Name Is Henrik Ponten.
    And im realy sorry for the loss of -Svenne
    last week... but hey look what i found in my mail?
    earlyer I called the producer of Wallander and he told me
    he will send me a movie or two.. so when i checked my mail
    i found the Retail Edition of the new Wallander movie named
    Prästen... gues what... its fucking 2 weeks pre retail
    i am realy l33t.. so i tought ill tell all of you who tought the
    swedish movie scene was about to die that you are WRONG..
    Enuff of the bullshit...
    Note To mr Ponten and the entire fucking Antipiracy homos..
    you can stope a revolutionary but you cant fucking
    stop a revolution...
    Ok you had some rat in SVENNE who snitched on his friends..
    wow way the go.. ppl know who he is and he will be taken care of
    dont worry..
    you had infiltrators before... congratulations...
    what you idiots dont think about is all the money YOU idiots
    spend on this is ALOT more than the real movie producers LOOSE..
    IF YOU LIKE IT BUY IT thats how it always been and always will be..
    and for the few faggots that dont agree on that, they wouldnt
    bought the movie anyway.. so take your paychecks and send em to the
    movie makers and go die... since yhe releasing have ALWAYS existed
    even back in the 80s with the amiga and c64s...
    The issue today isnt the release groups.. the issue is the p2p networks
    wich are public... not a closed network... any idiot (look at me)
    can get movies pre retail...
    and anyone can release anything anywhere... your focus should be on the
    so called "pirats" that is sharing everything with everyone not
    us...
    how ever i could go on for hours and writing a book
    regarding this issue but im not..
    i just want to send a Great Salut to all
    the fallen members of the group named -SVENNE and -REDCROSS
    and ALL OTHER groups, sites, etc who been a part of the
    APB with family, witch hunt thats been goin on for some time
    now...
    You are Gone But Not Forgoten...

  4. S0B4L4 // 10/13/2009 04:19:00 AM  
    This comment has been removed by the author.