Searches throughout Italy against 13 administrators of private IPTV (internet protocol television), carried out through the unauthorized transmission of protected content on the internet, and 1.3 million users blacked out: this is the outcome of an operation coordinated by the police of finance of Milan, as part of an investigation relating to the fight against the phenomenon of audiovisual piracy which also involves Abruzzo.
In conjunction with the 2024 European Football Championships, the Fiamme Gialle carried out 14 local and IT searches throughout the national territory against 13 suspects, residing in various Italian regions and abroad, all accused of managing illegal distribution networks of the major television schedules protected by copyright, illegally decrypting and redistributing the contents of the most important global television players via unauthorized IPTV platforms, causing significant economic damage to legitimate broadcasters.
The signal transmission was therefore obscured, preventing access to content for over 1.3 million users.
The suspects are in Abruzzo, Campania, Puglia, Lombardy, Marche, Liguria, Piedmont, Friuli Venezia Giulia. According to what emerged, they operated in a completely innovative way compared to the past, i.e. through the exfiltration of the decoding keys, necessary for the decryption and “unencrypted” viewing of all the channels and television schedules of the main and most important broadcasters which then, through the use of virtual servers, hosted by national and foreign internet service providers, were disclosed and intended for individual users of illegal IPTVs.
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“The investigative activity, made more complex by the use of VPN (Virtual private network) systems to anonymize communications, concluded with the identification of 13 people suspected of the crime envisaged by art. 171 ter of the Law on the right to the author, as well as abusive access to computer systems and possession of access codes and computer fraud and the blocking of pirated sites, while further investigations are underway in order to fully identify the individual users receiving the illegal IPTV. The investigations carried out – they further explain from the financial police – they are part of the broader device that the Corps puts in place on a daily basis to safeguard the economic and financial legality of the country. The violation of intellectual property rights constitutes, in fact, an extremely lucrative illicit activity for criminal organizations, generating. at the same time significant damage to the legal economy, due to the distortion of competition and the conspicuous tax evasion generated by this widespread illicit trafficking”.
