In a place where the population is mired even more than elsewhere in Europe in the economic crisis, the paid, but illegal, IPTV services are a good way for Greeks to enjoy content that is otherwise too expensive.
In Greece, as elsewhere in Europe, piracy is increasing and illegal access to live sport is exploding. Last week, the police in Patras, Greece’s third city, carried out several raids which made it possible toarrest those responsible for an illegal streaming platform, but also their associates. By putting an end to an illegal IPTV service, it is not a few small entrepreneurs that the Hellenic authorities have put behind bars, but rather an organized gang.
According to the Greek rights holders, the TV operators Cosmote, Nova, and Vodafone, in particular, the lack of earn generated by the activity of this IPTV pirate would be of the order of €100 million. The figure is enormous, so let us emphasize that we do not know by what method of calculation the rights holders arrived at it. According to TorrentFreak, “law enforcement arrested ten men, including the leader of the grouphis second, an individual believed to control the money, as well as an unspecified number of subscription sellers.”
Pirates made €25 million from illegal streaming and drove in a luxury car
The members of the organization “perceived the hand to hand payments, through online banks or even on the bank accounts of their family members.” In the space of eight years of activity, this system has allowed cybercriminals tocollect €25 million, money laundered through investments in real estate, individual companies or betting.”
To read – IPTV: they thought they were saving money but hackers plunder their account
Police raids made it possible to recover a tiny part of this loot, namely €100,000 in cash, 6 luxury cars and 6 motorcycles, but also “a multitude of IPTV devices, mobile phones, computers and customer and sales documents”. These individuals will appear before the courts for founding and participating in a criminal organizationcrimes against intellectual property and crimes of money laundering » in a trial that aims to be exemplary.