CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL STREAMING NETWORK WITH 22 MILLION USERS WORLDWIDE

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.europa.eu