Greek police have just announced that they have put an end to a vast pirate IPTV network, which operated in five regions of the country. 12 members have been arrested, while 43 customers are also under investigation.
While Google could soon deindex one of the largest IPTV stream directories in the world, the Greek police have just carried out another big raid. Indeed, the country’s authorities have put an end to a vast IPTV pirate network, which had been operating for years in 5 regions of the peninsula.
According to the Athens Cybercrime Prosecution Directorate, a raid led to the arrest of 9 members considered “as systematically active in the illegal retransmission of subscription television services”. Three other key members of the organization are still in the wild according to the details of the specialized brigade.
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Greek police take down vast pirate network
They will have to answer to several chargeslinked in particular to the formation, management and membership of a criminal organization, to violations of intellectual property law, to offenses linked to subscription services but also to illegal carrying of weapons (the police have found a knife and gas bombs during the search).
During this operation, the police also seized:
- next to 53,000 euros in cash
- 41 “online receivers”
- 24 smartphones of various brands
- 46 bank cards
- 22 hard drives
- 11 computers
- 6 SIM cards
- 5 Android tablets
- 3 USB sticks
- customer lists
- a wireless router
A well-established organization
Still according to the Greek authorities, this criminal cell was rather well organized. Two important members were responsible for maintaining the network infrastructure (essential for broadcasting pirate TV streams to subscribers), while the others were responsible for finding new customers, purchasing preconfigured decoders or even checking statuses. users (unpaid, imminent expiration of a subscription, etc.).
Regarding the losses caused by this network to subscription television companies, the Greek police estimate that they reach the 2,240,000 euros in total. For the moment, we do not yet know the sanctions incurred by the various defendants. Greek authorities also claim to have opened a survey of 43 identified customersFor “illegal consultation of pirate subscription services”.
Source: Torrent Freak