Police are breaking up the world’s largest piracy streaming network

The piracy operation is said to have distributed audiovisual content to over 22 million users worldwide and generated over 250 million euros in illegal revenue per month.

This week’s operation was coordinated by Europol and Eurojust and supported by the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA). It involved over 270 Polizia Postale officers who carried out 89 property searches in 15 Italian regions.

A further 14 searches were carried out by law enforcement authorities abroad, including five addresses in England, with further searches and seizures taking place in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia. 11 people were arrested by the Cybercrime Department of the Croatian Police.

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Cryptocurrencies worth over 1,650,000 euros and cash worth over 40,000 euros were also confiscated.

AAPA co-president Mark Mulready said: “We welcome the efforts of the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime, Europol, Eurojust and all law enforcement agencies involved in these operations. The scale of these multi-jurisdictional prosecutions highlights the significant challenge our industry faces in dealing with such sophisticated international pirate networks. We are proud to have worked with our law enforcement partners to provide technical training and on-site support to help them successfully combat the world’s largest pirate network.

“We are very grateful to the AAPA members who supported this day of action, including Premier League, Sky Group, Nagravision, Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), beIN Sports, United Media, Friend MTS and Irdeto.”

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