The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) has supported the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian State Attorney Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime and law enforcement agencies in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Croatia and England in dismantling the world’s largest transnational criminal organisation alleged to be serving pirated audiovisual content to over 22 million users and generating over €250 million in illegal revenue per month.
The operation, which took place on Tuesday, was coordinated by Europol and Eurojust and involved over 270 officers from the Polizia Postale carrying out 89 property searches in 15 Italian regions. An additional 14 searches were conducted by law enforcement agencies abroad, including five addresses in England, and further searches and seizures in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia. 11 people were arrested by the Cybercrime Division of the Croatian Police.
During the searches, cryptocurrencies in excess of €1,650,000 and cash in excess of € 40,000 were seized as alleged proceeds of the offences committed. These immediately seized proceeds represent only a fraction of an illegal business that is alleged to yield approximately €3 billion per annum.
Mark Mulready, Co-president of AAPA, said: “We applaud the efforts of the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian State Attorney Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime, Europol, Eurojust, and all of the law enforcement agencies involved in these operations. The scale of these multi-jurisdictional law enforcement actions highlights the considerable challenge our industry faces when dealing with such sophisticated international pirate networks.”
Mulready added he was grateful to the AAPA members who supported the action, including Premier League, Sky Group, Nagravision, Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), beIN Sports, United Media, Friend MTS and Irdeto.
