Two founders of Z-Library, a well-known electronic library, escaped from house arrest and are currently on international arrest warrants.

Z-Library is a website that shares various books and papers from around the world for free. Due to copyright issues (that is, those books protected by copyright), the website has been investigated and dealt with by the US judicial agencies many times, including the seizure and blocking of multiple different official domain names.

In November 2022, the two founders of the website, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova (both Russian nationals and a couple) went to Argentina for vacation. At that time, at the request of the United States, the police in Cordoba Province, Argentina arrested the two people.

The charges given by the United States are that they operate the online pirated website Z-Library for copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering. The latter two charges are caused by Z-Library's daily acceptance of donations and subscriptions.

In January 2023, an Argentine judge approved the police to place the two people under house arrest and rejected their request for extradition to the United States. Argentina said that the country does not allow the automatic execution of extraterritorial decisions and requests of third countries, so it has not approved extradition to the United States.

The latest news is that the two have escaped from house arrest in May 2024. It is difficult to say where they are now. The Argentine authorities believe that the two should still be in Argentina and have not left. The judge also ordered the international arrest of the two, which is to issue an international arrest warrant.

It is a very torturous state for Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova. After "escaping", they will always face the pursuit of law enforcement agencies. If they did not escape from prison, they would have to stay in Argentina due to extradition issues and always worry about being extradited to the United States.

No matter what the situation is, it is very bad. It is very unrealistic to expect the United States to drop the charges. Now after escaping from prison, you may have to hide somewhere anonymously, but there is always a risk of exposure.

After the two founders were arrested, Z-Library's remaining team continued to operate the electronic library. Although multiple domain names have been banned, access to the library is still stable and can continue to provide services to users.