Greece Prosecutes Owner of American VPN Service Over Fraudulent User Transactions

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Jul 27, 2015
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The founder of Florida-based VPN company TorGuard is listed as the prime suspect in a Greek fraud case. The authorities hold Ben Van Pelt personally responsible for roughly €2,000 in attempted fraudulent transactions carried out by an anonymous user of the service. Van Pelt's legal team say the incredible allegations and a potential five-year prison sentence are hard to justify.

Amidst growing concerns surrounding online privacy and security, VPN services have become increasingly popular in recent years. Millions of people use VPNs to stay secure and to prevent outsiders from tracking their online activities. As with regular Internet providers, a subsection of these subscribers may be engaged in shady activities. This can create serious problems. In the past, we have seen VPN services being taken to court over alleged piracy taking place through their network. These targets also included the American VPN company Torguard, which settled a dispute out of court. However, things would soon take a turn for the worse.
Earlier this year, TorGuard‘s owner Ben Van Pelt became the prime target of a criminal investigation in Greece. As it turns out, someone used a stolen credit card through the VPN service, attempting to make online purchases of €126.25, €498.68, €0.67 and €1,400 at Greek companies. All these transactions failed as the bank recognized that something was amiss. However, the card’s owner filed a complaint nonetheless and the Greek authorities took up the matter. Soon after, a police investigation was launched to find the person responsible for the attempted fraud.

This investigation eventually pointed to a shared IP address that was registered to TorGuard. In most cases the trail would end there as the VPN service has no logs to connect an IP address to a person. For the Greek authorities, the case was just getting started. The authorities identified Ben Van Pelt, who founded and owns the Florida-based TorGuard VPN service, as the culprit. As such, he is now the prime suspect in a foreign criminal investigation, facing up to five years in prison.
 

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