In less than a week the pirate that originally ripped and uploaded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was tracked down and caught by an Internet investigations firm. IP Cybercrime, the private investigations firm, followed the trail that was left online and off right to the pirate himself.

Activision Blizzard was alerted to the possibility of piracy when a Craigslist ad was posted for a bundled Xbox 360 with a copy of Modern Warfare 2 more than 10 days before the game was due to be released. Activision hired IP Cybercrime who called the sellers and set up a sting to buy the items. When confronted about the items the sellers admitted that they had stolen a crate of the bundles from a big box store that one of them works at.

Before they were caught a poster on the forums Xbox360iso.com asked for donations (in return for copies of the game) to help him purchase the bundle. He then ripped the game on Halloween weekend and the pirated game popped up across the Internet by the following Monday.

The person behind the posting on Xbox360iso.com was shrouded to IP Cybercrime. They did a search for the email address and found a Facebook page offering 360 modding services and a phone number with instructions to contact via text message.

The investigators sent a few messages back and forth with the pirate and eventually got him to call. A return call helped to find an address for a computer business owned by Hiram Del Amo and they deduced from there that the pirate was Hiram's son Christian Del Amo.

Del Amo was running a pirating business where he would sell hard drives filled with over 100 Xbox 360 games to buyers through his website iOffer.com; a major felony.

This story should be rather sobering to anonymous pirates around the Internet. Anyones tracks can be followed and all it really takes is a determined company to hire someone to find the trail. In the end it won't stop Modern Warfare 2 from being endlessly pirated, but it may start a trend of publishers taking the matter into their own hands.