European authorities crack down on illegal streaming networks

Officials said they dismantled nine organized crime groups and removed more than 27,000 URLs hosting live sports and other copyrighted media during a seven-month operation.

Authorities in Europe arrested 29 alleged cybercriminals and took down more than 27,000 illegal streaming URLs that pirated major sporting events, films and TV programming, Europol said Wednesday.

The continent-wide collaboration, led by Bulgaria and the European Union’s police agency, allowed authorities to dismantle nine organized crime groups supporting the illicit streaming networks, officials said. “Operation Kratos 2” focused on disrupting the networks’ underlying infrastructure and stretched for seven months before coming to a close in April. 

Officials did not name the suspects, groups or services targeted during the crackdown, but noted that investigators identified key players responsible for managing and operating the piracy platforms.

Europol said the streaming sites infringed on nearly 850,000 media across 169 domains. 

“What appears to consumers as cheap access to premium content is powered by complex criminal enterprises,” the agency said in a news release. Illegal streaming site operators host separate servers for customer-facing websites and illegal content, and distribute their services across multiple countries.

During the course of the operation, officials conducted 148 house searches, identified 86 suspects and referred 59 cases to courts for criminal proceedings. 

Investigators also worked with private-sector partners to identify nearly 4,400 new domains and more than 18,000 IP addresses linked to piracy and other illegal activity. Those efforts allowed authorities to report almost 400,000 additional URLs for suspension or removal. 

Live sports piracy networks are widespread and consistently tracked by antipiracy coalitions and authorities globally. Authorities in Egypt last year shut down Streameast, the most popular and largest illegal live sports streaming network at the time, with an operation that spanned 80 domains and logged more than 1.6 billion visits during the year prior.

Operation Kratos 2 was supported by anti-piracy associations, UEFA Europa League, La Liga, beIN Media Group and officials from Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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