Riot Games accuses Arizona man of trafficking stolen League of Legends accounts

Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, is again suing in federal court to shut down users who are trafficking items and services that violate the game's agreements. This time, they're going after someone who allegedly selling stolen user accounts.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accuses Zachary Kaufman of Peoria, Ariz. of operating a website called "DivineSmurfs," and selling stolen League of Legends accounts through it. "Defendants pretend, through the unauthorized use of Riot's intellectual property, to run a legitimate business instead of a fraudulent enterprise," says Riot’s complaint.

Riot says DivineSmurfs use promises of bonus game content to lure users into buying these accounts, which are impermissible under the game's terms of services, "and then leave players holding the bag when Riot discovers the theft."

DivineSmurfs.com is no longer online. For its part, according to Variety, the site said that all of the accounts it sold were internally generated. Riot's complaint says that after it contacted Kaufman, when he was operating the site under another name, he agreed to comply with Riot's policies but then changed the site's name to DivineSmurfs and continued the business as before.

Riot went on to accuse DivineSmurfs of selling "thousands, if not tens of thousands" of fraudulent accounts, based on information it gleaned when a Riot employee bought an account from the site and examined its login history.

The lawsuit is another manifestation of a get-tough policy Riot is bringing to bear on those who either violate the game's terms of services, sell League of Legends cheats, accounts or services on the side, or both. In August, Riot sued a Peruvian corporation called LeagueSharp, which it said charged monthly fees to provide users with cheats and automation bots to help them win matches and level up accounts, which in turn were sold to other players. That case was settled last week, Variety reported, in which LeagueSharp agreed to pay Riot $10 million, shut down and turn over its assets.

Polygon has reached out to Kaufman through an email address mentioned in Riot's complaint and will update this post with any comment received.