After their apologies, two of the 10 accused of hacking the pay TV channels were sentenced to pre-trial detention. Their profits within 8 years are estimated at 24 million euros.
After a long time procedure for the apologies of a total of ten defendants in the case of the pay-TV piracy circuit, the Investigator and the Prosecutor, provisionally sentenced the alleged leader and the deputy leader of the structured organization to temporary custody. The remaining eight defendants were released on bail conditions while a monetary guarantee was also imposed on some.
The case file included serious charges, such as criminal organization, violation of copyright law but also money laundering. It is estimated that other persons who have not been arrested so far are also involved in the case. In the Greek criminal system, these offenses are of a felony nature, with multi-year charges, administrative fines of up to 300.000 euros, provisions for seizure of movable and immovable property, as well as freezing of all bank accounts of thebluehaircuts.
Their action started 8 years ago, as they were channeling on the market illegal retransmission decoders of subscription channels, using specialized technical means, illegal software, as well as special decoders.
They found customers through an illegal online platform (portal), in which they operated both as administrators and as dealers of the services provided and the relay devices.
The investigation revealed that the members of the criminal organization having established a clientele of 13.000 people in Greece, managed to obtain an illegal financial benefit totaling more than 25.000.000 euros. Sources of finance factors they are talking about hundreds of millions of euros in lost revenue for the state.
To collect the profits, the defendants chose manual collection, collection through digital banks, based abroad, as well as through payments into their own and their family members' bank accounts.
As part of the investigation, the following were identified and seized:
- 93.500 euro
- 6.400 British pounds
- multitude of electronic devices IPTV Boxes
- mobile phones
- storage disks
- Computers
- 6 luxury cars
- 6 motorcycles
Numerous handwritten notes were found, listing clients, their phone numbers and addresses, as well as the amounts of money they received from each.
Since many websites still freely broadcast pay-TV games on the Internet
Let them be more careful