At this year’s Europol Intellectual Property Crime conference in Budapest, the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) announced the winner of it first award for a successful initiative to tackle audiovisual piracy.
The winner was Grupo de Antipirateria of the Policia Nacionale (Spain), led by Inspector Marlene Álvarez Vicente (pictured above). The award recognised the Grupo de Antipirateria’s successful operations in large scale illegal streaming cases, many of which affected AAPA members.
Two runner-up awards were made to the team led by Detective Superintendent George Kyne (pictured below) and including Detective Sergeant David Gilmore and Detective Garda Frank Lambe of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Garda, Ireland and to Bogdan Ciinaru of Europol’s IPC3 unit respectively.
In announcing the awards Sheila Cassells, Executive Director of AAPA, said that “AAPA recognises the challenges – whether resources, priorities, available knowledge and expertise – faced by law enforcement agencies and others in tackling audiovisual piracy. AAPA members decided that it is important to recognise formally the work of some of those from the public sector who have overcome these challenges to help us fight this crime which has a substantial impact on the creative industries and other sectors. This recognition is all the more important when IP crime is no longer an EMPACT priority.”
Presenting the awards Mark Mulready, VP of AAPA and VP of Cybersecurity Services at Irdeto, commented that “The work done by our three award recipients in fighting audiovisual piracy is of enormous value to the industry. It sends a clear signal that piracy will not be tolerated and law enforcement has the resources, skills and expertise to investigate this crime and bring the perpetrators to justice. Irdeto has been working with Marlene and her team on cases such as Operation Casper and Y-Internet and I can testify personally to the commitment, dedication and skills demonstrated by her and the team. We hope that these awards will help encourage others to take up the fight against audiovisual piracy and we are ready to support those efforts.”
