An international law enforcement operation has shut down a piracy streaming network that serves over 22 million users worldwide.
Codenamed ‘Take Down’, Italy’s Postal and Cybersecurity Police Service revealed that police officers carried out over hundred raids on illegal streaming infrastructure in Europe and China.
The piracy service had streamed to over 22 million users worldwide, using sophisticated IT systems to broadcast live TV schedules and on-demand content from Sky, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount, Disney+ and other platforms.
State police described it as ‘the most extensive operation against audiovisual piracy ever conducted at both the national and international levels.’
Over 2,500 illegal channels and servers were seized from the ring, which is thought to cause over £8 billion in economic damages to pay-TV companies year.
The police said that these illegal streams were accessible through a number of live-streaming websites, but they did not publish the domain names of the implicated platforms.
Italian officers were also able to uncover forums, blogs, and profiles across social media platforms that advertised the sale of these streams, as well monthly subscriptions for the illegal content.
102 individuals were targeted in the raids, with £1.38 million worth of cryptocurrencies also being confiscated.
More than 270 Italian Postal Police officers took part in the 89 raids in 15 Italian regions, with 14 additional searches carried out with the aid of Europol in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Croatia, and China.
The streaming ring, described as a ‘transnational criminal association’, was investigated by Italian police for over two years and operated with a complex ‘hierarchical structure’ and ‘well-defined operational units.’
The suspects had allegedly used encrypted messaging applications, fake identities, and falsified documents in order to evade investigation.
Three high-level members of the streaming network were identified in England and the Netherlands during the police raids.
Investigations also revealed nine key servers in Romania and Hong Kong that were distributing the pirated content across Europe, all of which were shut down by law enforcement in their operation.
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