Pirate IPTV Crackdown Underway in England & Northern Ireland, Arrests Mount

[Matrix]

 

This week police in the UK targeted another IPTV provider, arresting a 24-year-old man. However, there are other cases too involving at least three arrests and the seizure of luxury vehicles. All targets were detained under suspicion of fraud and money laundering offenses.

 

 

As reported early June, Spain’s National Police shut down a pirate IPTV operation that allegedly serviced two million customers.

 

The operation was a multi-national affair, with participation from law enforcement authorities across Europe, Canada and the United States. Almost €5 million in funds plus €1.1 in bank assets were frozen. This was a big operation by most standards but it’s clear that this didn’t mark the end of anti-IPTV activity in Europe.

Police Hit Another Supplier and ‘Hijacked’ its Streams

This week, news of a particularly interesting enforcement action appeared in the UK. After arresting a 24-year-old man in the Hollesley area of East Suffolk under suspicion of involvement in a pirate IPTV operation, police hijacked the service’s streams to deliver an anti-piracy message to subscribers of the service. The image below, supplied to TF by Suffolk Police, shows what customers saw.

 

 

This is the first time that police in the UK have used an IPTV service itself to deliver an anti-piracy warning and to our knowledge, this method has never been carried out in other countries either. If it had, perhaps the events we’ll mention now would’ve attracted more attention in the media.

Another Raid, Another Arrest, High-Value Assets Seized

On Thursday, June 25, Lancashire Police executed a search warrant at a house on Buckley Grove in the seaside resort of Lytham St Annes. Carried out under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, a 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the supply of pirate IPTV services and illegal TV streaming devices.

 

While these cases are increasingly common, particularly in mainland Europe, it is rare for police in the UK to immediately seize high-value assets in connection with local cases. As the images below show, police walked away with a couple of pretty nice vehicles.

 

 

In addition to the Range Rover Sport SVR V8 and Audi A5 convertible shown above, police also seized designer clothing, bags and watches.

 

“I hope this case shows people that we will work to find those responsible for what ultimately amounts to fraud, seeing people make thousands of pounds illegally. We will also look to seize what they spend their fraudulent profits on,” said DS Mark Riley from Lancashire’s Economic Crime Unit.

 

The name of the service hasn’t yet been published by the police and with insufficient evidence to back up the rumors, we won’t name it here.

Two People Arrested and Charged in Northern Ireland

To the west of Lytham and across the Irish Sea, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has also been busy cracking down on the provision of pirate IPTV services.

 

Details are scarce but it transpires that following an investigation in the Mid Ulster area, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detectives and local officers in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, uncovered what is being described as the “sale of illegal subscriptions for TV channels”.

 

“A 34-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman have been charged with a range of offenses including making or supplying articles for use in fraud, possessing articles infringing copyright, unauthorized use of a trademark and concealing criminal property,” a police spokesperson confirmed.

 

Again, police haven’t named the service but online chatter points firmly towards an IPTV supplier that disappeared offline last month. Without direct confirmation we won’t publish its name here but there are some signs that should the case go all the way to a conviction and sentencing, it could be a less than straightforward matter.

Fraud and Money Laundering Are the Common Factors

For many years people considered the operation of torrent sites and streaming platforms only from the angle of copyright law but what we are seeing with most IPTV cases are continual references to offenses under the Fraud Act (defrauding rightsholders) and Proceeds of Crime Act (money laundering).

 

These offenses not only attract significant custodial sentences in their own right but can also lead to those convicted being stripped of their property, if the authorities believe those assets were obtained from criminal activity.

 

  Source

[zanderthunder]

Maybe changing DNS and the usage of VPN will be the new norm in order to continue use IPTV services after this.

[steven36]

On 7/5/2020 at 7:36 AM, zanderthunder said:

Maybe changing DNS and the usage of VPN will be the new norm in order to continue use IPTV services after this.

They already block sports streams in  the UK so it already pretty much the norm to use a  VPN there and  the picture above is pretty much a scare tactic used by the police  they got who they was after the suppler  . 

 

  Why would  you buy illegal   IPTV ?

1.Signing up for long periods puts you at risk of financial loss.  2.Illegal IPTV Streams Are Unreliable  3. Using illegal streaming services could result in your ISP disabling your internet connection if you don't use vpn,  4. Watching Illegal Streams Leads to Prosecution if you don't use a non logging VPN .

 

Plenty of free  streams out there just use a adblocker  and VPN  I belong  to a private community were provides  us with free streaming sites ,  Illegal  HD  streams are unreliable because of buffering regardless  if you pay or if it free   so i always use the free sites  that have SD streams or you can change quality to lower if it buffer . Nothing is more annoying  than be watching something and it  start buffering besides  most stuff that be on IPTV can be downloaded or streamed with a browser or app and watched  by the next day  from pirate sites without  annoying  TV commercials , Also they plenty  of  free legal  services  . YouTube has some free legal movies . some of better ones  are  Tubi TV , Popcornflix , Sony Crackle , SnagFilms and  Pluto TV if blocked in your area just use a vpn. 

 

I can't stand IPTV resellers because always on the steaming how to sites when someone ask how to stream free IPTV they say  you need to buy Illegal IPTV because free is unreliable in Kodi  because they want sell them a sub and profit  from it . What they don't tell noobs who buy that crap paid Illegal IPTV  is unreliable as well  instead  of using Kodi  use a web app or browser for the free and it just as good and it cost you nothing . Same with  on demand people will try to get you to sign up to  paid services  to watch streams from filehosters  and torrents with kodi and some of the web apps when they torrent addons you can use with a vpn and kill switch  that work just as   good and cost you nothing but your vpn .  Some old shows were the seeds and links are dead  you will only find them on free links from CDNs  and things anyway . many  links to old shows died with   many streaming hoster getting shut down  by ace .