Authorities Arrested ‘Leaders’ of Prolific Piracy Release Group EVO

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2023-03-16 18:30:05

EVO, a P2P release group responsible for many high-profile movie screener leaks, mysteriously disappeared late last year. Anti-piracy coalition ACE now confirms that it identified the leaders of the EVO group around the same time. Several people were arrested and ACE is now collaborating with Portuguese authorities in an ongoing investigation.

Every day millions of people download or stream pirated movies, which are readily available online through hundreds of dedicated sites.

To the broader public, pirate sites and services are the gateways to a darker side of the entertainment world. In turn, however, these sites are heavily reliant on the crucial ‘suppliers’ at the top of the piracy pyramid.

Broadly speaking, there are two ‘supplier’ groups in this supply chain. On one side, ‘The Scene’, a conglomerate of often intertwined groups that release ‘their’ content on private topsites. Rules and security are key in The Scene, but in 2020, a series of raids demonstrated that it’s not impenetrable.

In addition to Scene groups, there are also P2P groups. The latter operate more loosely and are generally connected to private sites, including torrent trackers where they publicly release pirated movies and TV shows.