Illegal TV streaming, a network dismantled: 21 suspects and signal blocked
Profits of millions of euros per month for the transnational association brought to light by the Catania Prosecutor's Office
They distributed the contents of the main streaming platforms illegally: Sky, Dazn, Mediaset, Amazon Prime, Netflix .
An operation coordinated by the DDA of the Catania Prosecutor's Office led to the blocking of the illegal flow of IPTVs and live streaming sites of the most well-known platforms. There are 21 people under investigation , all belonging, according to investigators, to a transnational criminal association which would have had monthly profits amounting to several million euros .
The investigations made it possible to outline «the existence of a criminal association organized in a hierarchical manner according to distinct and very specific roles and with promoters distributed throughout the national territory and abroad, with the aim of constant distribution to a very high number of users, nationally and internationally, of live schedules and on-demand content protected by television rights, owned by the most well-known television platforms such as Sky, Dazn, Mediaset, Amazon prime, Netflix, through the illegal IPTV system, with monthly profits of several million euros."
The illicit conduct, which continued for a long period of time, was stopped this morning. To evade the investigations, the suspects, the prosecutor claims, "made use of encrypted messaging applications, fictitious identities and false documents" which were "also used for the registration of telephone accounts, credit cards, television subscriptions and server rental".
On various social platforms they advertised the sale throughout Italy of streams, panels and monthly subscriptions for the illegal viewing of audiovisual content .
The suspects are located in the provinces of Catania, Messina, Syracuse, Cosenza, Alessandria, Naples, Salerno, Reggio Emilia, Pisa, Lucca, Livorno and Bari . The Etna Prosecutor's Office contests, in various capacities, the crimes of transnational criminal association aimed at the dissemination of television schedules with conditional access, damage to information, data and computer programs, abusive access to an IT system, computer fraud.
The operation made it possible to inhibit the illegal flow of IPTV and live streaming sites .
(Unioneonline/L)
