Stockholm – During raids on multiple locations throughout Sweden in connection with enquiries pertaining to ThePirateBay.org, police have seized computer hardware belonging to multiple unrelated businesses and individuals to a value in excess of 1 million SEK collocating at internet host PRQ. Amongst the impounded hardware was that belonging to Stockholm-based GameSwitch; director of the company Christopher Adams comments on the operation and the impact upon the company,

“Our hardware was severed from the internet at approximately 12 noon Swedish time today without notice or explanation and currently is believed to be in the possession of Stockholm Police, although this cannot be confirmed; we have thus far been unsuccessful in attempts to seek information from both the Police as they hold their silence and our contacts at our service provider, PRQ (most of whom had been taken in for questioning). However, from the little information that we have managed to gather, it appears that 50 police officers were involved in the operation which resulted in an entire building being removed of its hardware by officers, not discriminating in any way between those of ThePirateBay and unrelated customers of PRQ.

As a result of this seemingly irrational and disproportionate move by police, our entire business, in effect, has also been seized. We are unable to provide services to our subscribed customers, sales and development of our software systems are impossible and our data, including both that of our customers as well as the source code of our software products, to the value of 80,000 SEK could well be undergoing close scrutiny by police – data that could not be suspected of illegality under any stretch of the imagination.

GameSwitch has been given a massive blow today that could, depending on the further unfolding of events, take years to recover from, also shared by many other companies firmly based in New Technology principles in the same building. This is the kind of industry that governments should be seeking to promote and encourage rather than wipe out in the fallout of what some might suggest as being an unfounded display of desultory, ill-considered foreign appeasement, and we sincerely hope that those affected, ourselves included, and thus our customers, will be compensated accordingly.”

Founded in August 2002, GameSwitch has been a company at the forefront of expansion and development in the online multi-player video gaming industry in the areas of customer-needs-based service control and on-demand high availability services, both supplying game hosting services to gamers and multiple management software products, including the flagship S2 Management System, and bespoke solutions to individuals and businesses world-wide.