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Police bust British expats running pirate TV network from Costa Blanca home
Two men aged 70 and 50 were arrested in Alicante after National Police uncovered an illegal streaming operation worth €190,000
A house in Alicante has been revealed as the nerve centre of an illegal streaming operation that gave hundreds of people access to pirated television channels from across Europe. The National Police have shut down the platform and arrested two British men, aged 70 and 50, who are accused of running the whole show and pocketing around €190,000 in the process.
The operation was carried out by the Central Cybercrime Unit, who managed to track down the private residence where the pair were controlling illicit access to audiovisual content from several different European countries. When officers raided the property, they found 42 decoding devices, seven memory cards, a computer, two mobile phones and a tablet, all of which were being used as part of the technical setup to offer paid subscription packages to television channels without any proper authorisation.
The platform worked on a username and password basis and gave customers access to TV content from Spain, Germany, France, Norway and Denmark. Subscribers could watch their programmes on both smart TVs and mobile devices, making it pretty convenient for anyone who didn't fancy paying legitimate subscription fees.
According to the investigation, the two men were also offering tutorials and specific tools, including decoders, to help their customers get connected. Police believe this shows the operation was pretty well organised and technically sophisticated, with the pair clearly knowing how to get around the broadcast protection systems that are supposed to stop this sort of thing.
The platform had 330 subscribers in total, which might not sound like a massive operation compared to some of the big streaming services, but it was clearly lucrative enough to generate a substantial income for the two arrested men.
They're now facing charges for crimes against intellectual property, crimes against linear television audiovisual communication services with conditional access, and fraud against electricity.
The police have already blocked the website that was being used to distribute the service, but officers are still trying to work out if there are more people involved in the network or if there are international connections linked to the distribution of this type of illegal content.
Image: Policia Nacional
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