Police take down world’s largest pirated streaming network

The piracy operation allegedly served audiovisual content to more than 22 million users worldwide and generated more than 250 million euros in illegal revenue per month.

The operation, carried out this week, was coordinated by Europol and Eurojust and supported by the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA). More than 270 Polizia Postale agents carried out 89 property searches in 15 Italian regions.

Fourteen other searches were carried out by law enforcement agencies abroad, including five addresses in England, and other searches and seizures took place in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, France , in Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia. 11 people were arrested by the Croatian Police Cybercrime Division.

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Cryptocurrencies worth more than €1,650,000 and cash worth more than €40,000 were also seized.

Mark Mulready, Co-President of the AAPA, said: “We welcome the efforts of the Catania Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian Prosecutor’s Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime, Europol, Eurojust and all law enforcement agencies involved in these operations. The scale of these multi-jurisdictional law enforcement actions highlights the significant challenge our industry faces in the face of such sophisticated international pirate networks. We are proud to have worked with our law enforcement partners to provide technical training and on-the-ground support to help them successfully combat the world’s largest hacker network.

“We are very grateful to AAPA members who supported this day of action, including the Premier League, Sky Group, Nagravision, Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), beIN Sports, United Media, Friend MTS and Irdeto. “

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