A business led by Europol, involving police forces from Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria and the Netherlands, targeted one of IPTV's largest piracy companies in the world.
At least three people were arrested, and servers were seized in Bulgaria and the Netherlands that supplied content to around 500.000 subscribers worldwide, with annual revenues that, according to the authorities, amounted to about five million euros.
Live TV or IPTV offers access to content, but it is an extremely costly proposition, since traditional monopolies require large subscriptions. IPTV also offers the well-known Kodi application with various add-ons.
So there are pirated IPTVs, which provide thousands of different subscription channels for a few bucks, euros or pounds a month.
This week, however, police forces across Europe have been tuned to hit one of the largest IPTV illegal companies in the world, Torrentfreak says. The survey was launched last February by IPTV and coordinated actions took place on Tuesday in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece and the Netherlands.
Three suspects were arrested in Cyprus, two in Limassol (43 and 44 years) and one in Larnaca (aged 53 years). They all appear to be part of an international circuit that illegally transmits approximately 1.200 pirate content worldwide.
According to initial reports, the scope of the IPTV service offered by the network was enormous. The information indicates that the illegal circuit had more than 500.000 subscribers, with each one paying about 10 euros per month.
Police authorities, under the guidance of Europol, have carried out at least nine raids worldwide.
The main servers of the IPTV service were located in Petrich, a small town in Blagoevgrad province of southwest Bulgaria.
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