Investigators have suspended the operations of major Russian file sharing web site iFolder.ru over child pornography posted there, Moscow police said Thursday.
Police investigators have opened a criminal case against an unidentified person who posted the images on charges of producing and circulating pornography featuring children under the age of 14, spokeswoman Olga Dumalkina told Interfax.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
On Wednesday, investigators arrived at the office of Agava, which manages iFolder.ru, on 2nd Ulitsa Entuziastov and sealed off all of the iFolder servers, as well as a number of servers that had no relation to iFolder, Agava said in a statement on its corporate blog.
Dumalkina said the measure was needed to "prevent further circulation of child porn," Interfax reported.
Agava said the investigators' actions were "jeopardizing and dimming the future of every business on the RuNet." Investigators had been planning to seize all of Agava's equipment, the company said.
A police source could not say when iFolder.ru would be back online, RIA-Novosti reported.
Agava was founded in 1998 as a company producing custom-made software and has since added web hosting and advertising to the services it provides.
In February, prosecutors shut down the Torrents.ru web site after accusing Russia's most popular BitTorrent tracker site of breaching intellectual property rights.