Several high-ranking members of the group were caught on April 21, 2004, 8 months after the group returned from their temporary "retirement" that began on June 9, 2003 and ended on August 30, in an
FBI operation called
Operation Fastlink. Police forces from eleven countries were involved,
arresting about 120 people and seizing more than 200
computers (including 30 servers). One
server from the U.S. raid contained 65,000 pirated titles which were alleged to be in the archive repository of the group. The operation was coordinated by the FBI, the British
National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, the German
Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) and the
Business Software Alliance, and took place in 27 U.S. states. In the
UK, seven computers were seized and three arrests made in Belfast, Manchester and Sheffield. In
Singapore, three people (22, 30 & 34 years old) were arrested. In the
Netherlands two servers owned by students on 2 universities were investigated by police officers. Other arrests and seizures were made in
Belgium,
Denmark,
France,
Germany,
Hungary,
Israel, and
Sweden for a total of 11 countries. According to rumor, the raid occurred just before the warez group would have released the game
Hitman: Contracts. The game was released by other groups (iNSOMNiA, for
Xbox and
PS2, and
Razor 1911, for
PCs) a few days later. Shortly after the Operation Fastlink raids, council member [Bacchus] writes: The last massive warez-related raid prior to Fastlink was
Operation Buccaneer which targeted
DrinkOrDie (amongst others) in December 2001. ==Game ISO==