Both Anton Napolsky, 33, and Valeriia Ermakova, 27, are from St. Petersburg, Russia. They are accused of operating Z-Library, an online e-book piracy website that has been online since 2009.

Stripped of copyright protections, the e-book files offered by Z-Library are in a variety of file formats. The website claims to offer more than 11 million e-books for download and encourages users to upload and download titles.

Z-Library has no right or license to distribute the e-books it offered. Authors hold copyrights and publishers hold exclusive distribution rights for these e-books, which are protected intellectual property.

Aside from its homepage, Z-Library operated as a complex network of around 249 interrelated web domains and allowed users to download copyrighted books for free, which is a crime in the U.S. The website “has robbed individuals of the fruits of their labor” for Napolsky and Ermakova’s personal gain, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On November 3, 2022, Napolsky and Ermakova were arrested in Cordoba, Argentina at the request of the United States. On the same day, the U.S. government seized Z-Library’s network of online domains, which was taken offline. 

Napolsky and Ermakova are awaiting extradition to the U.S. They were each charged with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering.