As reported by the Police, it is estimated that some 3,000 users would be accessing the signal of the organization under investigation, which meant illicit income of about 150,000 euros per year. However, the complainant had estimated her losses at around 500,000 euros per year. The detainees are charged with crimes against intellectual property and against television broadcasting services on a conditional basis.
The main provider allegedly served about 2,000 people while two other arrested allegedly acted as resellers and provided the signal to another 1,000 users.
The investigations began at the beginning of 2020, when the operator Telefónica -owner of its own exclusive content distribution platform under the modality of IPTV and satellite- detected a series of web pages, related to each other and advertised on various social networks, whose The purpose was the illicit commercialization of the contents since they did not have the authorization or the necessary permissions to carry out this dissemination.
Once the complaint was received, the agents analyzed the denounced web pages and the means of payment that those investigated used to receive the income for the services they provided. The police officers determined that one of them was the main element of the criminal organization, since he was the one who allegedly broadcast the illegal television signal and provided it to the other involved, who were resellers.
The organization had a typical structure for the dissemination of illicit signals through IPTV, made up of a content provider who is the fundamental person in providing the television signal with the channels that are offered; resellers or ‘resellers’, who are in charge of buying that signal from the provider and subsequently “reselling” it to end users for a somewhat higher price; and the end users, who are the customers who contact the resellers, who usually advertise through their own web pages, social networks or buying and selling portals.
ENTRIES AND RECORDS
Given the ease offered by the IPTV system to broadcast the television signal regardless of the physical location of the people, it was detected that the content provider lived in the Malaga town of Estepona, while the other five involved lived in Madrid, in the Valencian town of San Antonio de Benagéber and in Vall d’Uixó, in the province of Castellón.
Once all the steps to locate the members of this organization had been carried out, as well as to establish the relationships that existed between them and the role that each one played, the entry and registration of their homes was requested, in order to collect evidence. and dismantle the illicit signal broadcasting system that they had set up.
The entries and searches were carried out in the three homes simultaneously. At the home of the principal investigated, in Estepona, different panels were located from which the clients were managed on the three investigated web pages.
Through these panels the signal was provided to both other resellers and end users, with which it is estimated that some 2,000 customers depended directly on this provider. Along with the main detainee, two other people who collaborated in the illicit broadcast of the signal were arrested in Estepona.
In the homes of San Antonio de Benagéber and Vall d’Uixó, the two main resellers of the main investigated were arrested, who also had panels to manage their own IPTV clients, which were approximately 500 in each case. One of them even had an infrastructure for broadcasting the signal installed in his home.
The last arrest was made in Madrid, specifically a woman who collaborated with the main investigated in his tasks of managing the web pages.
– .
