TWO British nationals have been arrested by the Policia Nacional for running a pirate IPTV operation out of their Alicante home.
The Brits, aged 50 and 70, garnered 330 subscribers and generated around €190,000 of revenue.
The platform has been blocked by the Policia Nacional’s Cybercrime Unit.
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The pirate IPTV network offered access to premium channels from around Europe- with the operation coming out of an Alicante property.
A police search yielded 42 decoder devices, seven memory cards, a computer, two mobile phones and a tablet.
All of the gear was part of the technical infrastructure used to offer, upon payment of a fee, illegal subscription packages to television channels.
The platform worked by username and password and allowed access to content from countries such as Spain, Germany, France, Norway, and Denmark.
Customers could access the clandestine service via smart TVs and mobile devices.
The arrested Brits provided decoders to clients to view channels in what the Policia Nacional described as ‘an organised and technically prepared structure to circumvent subscription protection systems’.
The duo face charges of committing copyright offences, electricity fraud, and defrauding audiovisual services.
Investigations are still active to see if anybody else was involved either in Spain or abroad.
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