Gironde: dismantling of international pirate television network
An investigation by the Anti-Cybercrime Office has ended a vast trafficking operation in illegal television subscriptions. Fourteen suspects have been arrested in France and abroad.
Gironde: dismantling of international pirate television network
An operation conducted by police specialists in cybercrime fighting resulted in the dismantling of a criminal structure broadcasting pay-TV channels without authorisation. In total, fourteen people were held in police custody, both in France and beyond its borders, according to the daily newspaper Sud Ouest (link).
It all began when the Canal+ group brought the matter to the attention of the courts. Its fraud-fighting department had detected that its programmes were being redistributed on clandestine servers. Investigators from the DCOS — the Division responsible for organised crime — then took over, starting with a resident of the Landes providing computer equipment.
Under the direction of the Jirs public prosecutor's office in Bordeaux, the investigation extended to several departments. In the Gironde department, a shopkeeper was selling modified set-top boxes and fraudulent subscriptions. Over five years of operation, his illicit gains are estimated at more than 340,000 euros.
The head of the network was an Algerian national approximately thirty years old. He managed the website marketing the pirate offerings. To obscure the financial trail, he avoided any direct cashing. He preferred to go through intermediaries or demand that resellers pay server hosting costs to server providers. These intermediaries, all natives of his place of origin in the Maghreb but residing in France or maintaining family ties on the territory, were tasked with recruiting new distributors and managing technical interfaces.
The searches led to the seizure of several hundred thousand euros in cash as well as real estate assets. A humanitarian association ostensibly dedicated to helping the destitute in Algeria had been set up; in reality, it served only as a front for recycling the profits.
Two individuals specialising in money laundering were identified, one in Belgium and the other in Algeria. They used accounts of relatives established in France to conceal transfers.
The suspects face prosecution for counterfeiting. For some of them, charges of money laundering as part of an organised group have also been brought.
Source: Google News MA — Crime (fr)