Police raid 'network of pay-TV pirates' broadcasting to tens of millions worldwide
One service bundled together content from Sky Italia, Netflix and two other broadcasters for just €12 (£10) a month.
Wednesday 18 September 2019 17:15, UK
Police have raided a network of suspected pay-TV pirates, seizing equipment and shutting down services being streamed to tens of millions of people.
The biggest provider, known as Xtream Codes, had about 50 millions users worldwide, Italian police said.
Its service bundled together content from Sky Italia, Netflix, Italian broadcaster Mediaset and sports live-stream service Dazn for just €12 (£10) a month.
People who bought illegal subscriptions will be prosecuted, officers said.
Dawn raids coordinated by crime-fighting agencies Europol and Eurojust targeted operations in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece and Bulgaria.
Eurojust said it had targeted an "international criminal network committing massive fraud" which was "jeopardising the existence of many legal providers of pay-TV".
The financial damage amounted to about €6.5m (£5.7m), it added.
Police said 25 suspects had been identified - all of them in Italy apart from two in Greece, who officers described as the ringleaders.
About 100 Italian police officers were deployed in the operation, working in coordination with local authorities.
More than 200 servers and digital equipment were seized in Germany, France and the Netherlands, while more than 150 PayPal accounts connected to the criminals were blocked.
The raids were part of an investigation into the role of organised crime in pay-TV piracy after Italian prosecutors found evidence of sophisticated, large-scale illegal subscription businesses since 2015.