November 27th 2024.
The streaming service that has been serving millions of users worldwide has been brought down in an international operation conducted by law enforcement. Codenamed 'Take Down', the operation was carried out by the Italian Postal and Cybersecurity Police Service, who revealed that they had conducted over a hundred raids on illegal streaming infrastructure in both Europe and China.
This piracy service was responsible for streaming live TV schedules and on-demand content from popular platforms such as Sky, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount, Disney+, and others. With their sophisticated IT systems, they were able to reach over 22 million users across the globe. The state police have described this as the most extensive operation against audiovisual piracy ever conducted, both nationally and internationally.
During the operation, over 2,500 illegal channels and servers were seized, causing an estimated £8 billion in economic damage to pay-TV companies each year. The Italian police, who had been investigating this ring for two years, have finally revealed details of the operation, named 'Take Down', today. They have not disclosed the domain names of the websites that provided access to these illegal streams.
In addition to the illegal streaming websites, Italian officers also uncovered forums, blogs, and social media profiles that advertised the sale of these streams, as well as monthly subscriptions for the illegal content. In total, 102 individuals were targeted in the raids, and £1.38 million worth of cryptocurrencies were also confiscated.
Over 270 Italian Postal Police officers participated in the 89 raids that took place in 15 Italian regions. With the assistance of Europol, 14 additional searches were carried out in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Croatia, and China. This streaming ring, which has been described as a 'transnational criminal association', was investigated by Italian police for over two years and was found to have a complex hierarchical structure with well-defined operational units.
The suspects had gone to great lengths to evade investigation, using encrypted messaging applications, fake identities, and falsified documents. However, three high-level members of the streaming network were identified in England and the Netherlands during the police raids. Further investigations also revealed nine key servers in Romania and Hong Kong that were responsible for distributing the pirated content across Europe. These servers were all shut down by law enforcement during the operation.
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