Spanish police have dismantled a network of illegal media content distribution that, since the start of its operations in 2015, has made over $5,700,000.
The investigation began in November 2022 following a complaint submitted by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which reported two web pages for violations of intellectual property rights.
Those sites hosted the illegal IPTV service ‘TVMucho,’ also known as ‘Teeveeing,’ which, according to ACE, had over 4 million visits in 2023.
Upon investigating the report, the police discovered that the owners of these sites were behind a large-scale IPTV operation that provided roughly 14,000 subscribers illegal access to 130 international TV channels and thousands of films and series.
“This international criminal organization used the latest technology and the most advanced technical devices to capture signals emitted via satellite in many countries,” reads the police’s announcement.
“Later they amplified and decrypted the multimedia content they transported, content that they then distributed publicly and illegally.”
Subscribers to the service paid between $11 and $20.5 per month, or $97 and $182.5 per year, depending on their subscription tier, allowing the IPTV platform operators to make a profit of $5.7 million in total.
The Spanish police conducted searches in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Madrid, Oviedo, and Málaga and arrested eight people who are believed to be linked to the operation of the IPTV scheme.
The arrested individuals are believed to be subordinates of the ring’s leader, a Dutch citizen, who is also under investigation.
The law enforcement agents confiscated computers and material, $86,400 in bank accounts, and took the servers that supported the operation of 16 illegal streaming sites offline.
Visitors to the illegal media streaming websites are now automatically redirected to the Spanish police website, where they can see a confiscation notice.
Of course, users with active subscriptions should consider their money gone. However, this might not be their primary concern at this time.
As the servers holding subscriber information have fallen into the hands of the police, it could possibly lead to fines for people who opted to purchase access to illegal streaming services.