The Hague, 27 November 2024
Authorities have struck a blow at illegal streaming networks, by shutting down one of the world’s largest illegal service. Eurojust and Europol supported the operation, which involved cooperation between Italian, Croatian, Dutch, Romanian, Swedish, Swiss and UK authorities. In a large-scale operation, over 100 searches were carried out against 102 suspects. Eleven suspects are arrested in Croatia.
The suspects illegally distributed material from streaming services online, including films and series. They also pirated more than 2 500 television channels such as sports channels. The illegal service served more than 22 million users worldwide. They were able to make over EUR 250 million in illegal profits per month. The economic damages to the copyright holders of the material is estimated at EUR 10 billion.
To evade authorities, the suspects allegedly used encrypted messaging services to communicate and false identities to register phone numbers, credit cards, server rentals and television subscriptions. On 26 November, during an international operation, the servers hosting the illegal streaming were seized and shut down, disrupting the services.
Collaboration between authorities was set up at Eurojust to take down the streaming service. Coordination meetings at Eurojust’s headquarters allowed authorities from Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom to work together on the investigation and plan the operation to shut down the service and arrest the suspects. Europol supported the operation by deploying experts and analysing the available intelligence during the investigation phase.
The cooperation between the authorities culminated in a joint operation to take down the services on 26 November. During searches in Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Croatia, the United Kingdom and China, over EUR 1.6 million in cryptocurrency and EUR 40 000 in cash was seized. Croatian police arrested 11 suspects.
The authorities involved in the actions were:
- Italy: Public Prosecution Office Catania
- Croatia: The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime
- Netherlands: Fiscal Information and Investigation Service; Public Prosecution Service Rotterdam
- Romania: Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism; Direction for Fighting Organized Crime – Cyber Crime Fighting Service
- Sweden: National unit against organized crime at the Swedish Prosecution Authority; Swedish Police Authority
- Switzerland: Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland; Federal Office of Police
- United Kingdom: City of London Police
Source – Eurojust
AAPA members collaborate with law enforcement in the world’s largest operation against audiovisual piracy
27 November 2024
The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) has supported the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian State Attorney Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime and law enforcement agencies in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Croatia and England in dismantling the world’s largest transnational criminal organisation alleged to be serving pirated audiovisual content to over 22 million users, and generating over 250 million euros in illegal revenue per month.
The operation, conducted yesterday, was coordinated by Europol and Eurojust and involved over 270 officers from the Polizia Postale carrying out 89 property searches in 15 Italian regions. An additional 14 searches were conducted by law enforcement agencies abroad, including five addresses in England, and further searches and seizures in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia. 11 people were arrested by the Cybercrime Division of the Croatian Police.
During yesterday’s searches, cryptocurrencies in excess of EUR 1,650,000 and cash in excess of EUR 40,000 were seized as alleged proceeds of the offences committed. These immediately seized proceeds represent only a fraction of an illegal business that is alleged to yield approximately EUR 3 billion per annum.
Digital piracy harms the entertainment and creative industries across the continent and is often run by sophisticated criminal networks that may use their profits to fund other serious forms of criminal activity. At the same time, illegal streams can expose the end user to the risks of data theft, fraud and malware.
Mark Mulready, Co-president of AAPA, said: “We applaud the efforts of the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian State Attorney Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime, Europol, Eurojust, and all of the law enforcement agencies involved in these operations. The scale of these multi-jurisdictional law enforcement actions highlights the considerable challenge our industry faces when dealing with such sophisticated international pirate networks. We are proud to have collaborated with our law enforcement partners to provide technical training and in-field support to assist them in successfully tackling the world’s largest pirate network.
We are very grateful to the AAPA members who supported this action day, including Premier League, Sky Group, Nagravision, Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), beIN Sports, United Media, Friend MTS and Irdeto.
We will continue to closely collaborate with law enforcement agencies in Europe and beyond to enable them to successfully identify, investigate and prosecute large-scale cross-border pirate networks.”
Source – Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) (by email)