Four men have been arrested in Spain for operating a pirate streaming network that comprised a staggering 2,600 channels illegally servicing around half a million viewers.
Police in Malaga announced the bust, which put an end to the illicit service that used websites to advertise 23,000 movies and TV series via nearly 100 ‘resellers’ in Spain, the UK, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus, and Greece.
Before their arrest, the suspects were allegedly raking in €3 million a year, laundering the funds through property purchases and diverting money to offshore bank accounts.
During the bust, police shut down 32 servers in France, the Netherlands, and Spain, evidencing the pan-European scale of the operation though it was headquartered in the latter country.
Eight bank accounts were frozen, and the seizure of €2,800 in cash from suspects was dwarfed by the impounding of two cars valued at €180,000 – assets believed to have been acquired by the alleged crooks using their ill-gotten gains.
The suspects have been detained in Benahavís, Mijas, and Benalmádena in Malaga, and Spanish police continue their efforts to identify what they describe as other potential suspects in the case.
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