GameGuide

Modern Warfare 2 has been leaked onto the Internet, prompting Microsoft to announce that they will actively pursue any Xbox 360 piracy. In the meantime though, it appears that the original perpetrator has been arrested.

Venturebeat is reporting that Christian Del Amo, an 18-year-old from Miami, initially cracking the game’s code on Monday, which was followed by a flood illegal copies on torrent sites.

“It all happened very fast,” said Rob Holmes, owner of IPCybercrime, a private investigation firm.

“If these guys get their stuff out, then they can do some major damage to sales and spoil it for everybody. We plug leaks every day, but this was one of the biggest ones of the year.”

The investigation began when a “box boy at a major retail chain” stole a crate containing Modern Warfare 2 bundles from a “major retail chain” and began selling them on Craigslist. IPCybercrime was able to put an end to the sales, but not before the listing attracted the notice of hackers.

Del Amo posted a request for donations to buy one of the bundles on an Xbox piracy forum, and was able to obtain a copy of Modern Warfare 2 on October 30 before cracking the protection that weekend. IPCybercrime was able to track Del Amo through social networking sites like Facebook to his modding business in Miami, where he was selling modded Xbox 360s along with pirated copies of Modern Warfare 2.

With the help of IPCybercrime, Miami-Dade Police Department were able to track Del Amo to his home and arrest him, but the damage has been done. A cursory search for Modern Warfare 2 on any torrent site will reveal multiple listings for the game. However, at least one of the culprits appears to have been caught.

“Hopefully it is a lesson,” Holmes said.

“If you try to do piracy on a large scale, you will get caught. When you use the Internet, you always leave tracks somewhere.”

Legal copies of Modern Warfare 2 will be out November 10. [1up]