On Wednesday, 27th November, the Italian police shut off the most widespread transnational criminal video piracy network that had over 22 million users in Italy and Europe.
The network in question had an estimated illegal turnover of more than 250 million euros ($260 million) every month, killing the revenue of pay TV companies to the tune of 10 billion euros, according to the Italian police in the Sicilian town of Catania .
These officials also added that 270 officers had carried out 89 searches in 15 Italian regions.
“Operation Takedown” was planned with the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) and Europol, with the aid of several European police forces.
Additional 14 searches were made in Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania and Croatia, rounding it up to 11 arrests, the Italian authorities said in a press conference in Catania.
The suspects will likely to be charged with copyright infringement, abusive access to computer systems, possession of access codes, and computer fraud.
The affected companies are Sky, Dazn, Mediaset, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Paramount and Disney+, according to investigators via a report by newspaper Corriere della Sera.
