A 25-year old computer scientist from Cologne has been arrested as the main offender in the case of the illegal distribution of Sky Deutschland’s channels over the internet.
The move follows extensive investigations by the cybercrime department of the public prosecutors’ office in Bamberg in collaboration with the Bavarian state office of criminal investigation against the operators of the illegal streaming sites stream4k.net and mystreamz.cc. As part of the action, the perpetrator was arrested on January 23, 2017 and two apartments in Cologne were raided.
The investigations are the result of a complaint filed by Sky Deutschland, a Sky spokesman confirmed to Broadband TV News.
In 2016, eleven apartments were already raided and two supporters arrested as part of the investigations. The results of these measures and further extensive investigations enabled the prosecutors to track down the main offender who confessed the allegations.
He used to stream Sky Deutschland’s TV signals over the internet and charged the users a monthly fee. With around 3,000 users, it used to be one of the largest German-language offers of this kind at one stage, according to the prosecutors.
The illegal streaming platform mystreamz.cc operated by the offenders has been taken down and cash and bitcoins in a five-digit euro amount seized.
The prosecutors and the Bavarian state office of criminal investigation continue their investigations.
