It took a lengthy UDRP to recover the premium, three letter domain, APG.com, which had been stolen by a cyberthief.
In July 2015, APG Technologies, LLC acquired the 20 year old domain APG.com from its previous owner, for the sum of $30,000 dollars.
The domain, at the time, was registered with Network Solutions; in September of this year, the domain was inexplicably and without authorization transferred out.
The receiving registrar was eName.com in China, that on numerous occasions has been used by thieves and cybercriminals to transfer stolen domains to.
It was on the eName domain auctions marketplace that AGP.com was promptly resold, to a self-professed domain investor in China.
The Respondent, in this UDRP is the domain’s buyer, Dong Zhipeng, who made the following claims regarding the domain’s ownership:
- Beijing Fengda Paper Co., Ltd, is a Chinese paper mill company, making a come-back in the Chinese market.
- APG is Pinyin for “love lots of share” and thus APG.com would be great for this company, and a reason APG.com was bought at an eName auction.
These justifications appear to have been fabricated for the sole purpose of inventing rights to a stolen domain asset, or – in plain English – they were pulled straight out of the Respondent’s ass.
John Berryhill, attorney for the Complainant, stated in this UDRP for APG.com:
“The domain name currently points to what appears to be the site of a paper manufacturer in China, having no discernible relationship with the letters “APG”, and no discernible relationship to the current registrant of the domain name. […] In the event the current Respondent appears with a claim to have “purchased” the domain name from an intermediate party, as some sort of bona fide purchaser without notice, it is obvious the Respondent could not have obtained good title from a thief through some chain of laundering transactions. Likewise, the rapid churning of WHOIS contact details is a classic indication of “cyberflight” in an attempt to obscure the trail.”
The panelist examined all the evidence and delivered a decision that APG.com should be transferred back to its legitimate owners (auto-translated:)
“Situation clearly shows that even if the respondent did not steal the domain name, they have benefited from the theft of the domain name from the complainant.”
For the full text of the UDRP in Chinese, click here; or read the English translation via Google.
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