European Police Pull Plug On 'Largest' Illegal Streaming Service | Barron's

An international police operation has shut down "one of the world's largest" illegal online streaming services, used by some 22 million people worldwide and causing billions of euros in copyright damages, EU law agencies said on Wednesday.

Police from nine EU countries and Britain swooped on suspects on Tuesday, shutting down servers and carrying out searches, Eurojust and Europol said in separate statements.

"In a large-scale operation, over 100 searches were carried out against 102 suspects. Eleven suspects were arrested in Croatia," the EU's judicial cooperation arm Eurojust said.

The suspects "illegally distributed material from streaming services online, including films and series", it added, saying that "the illegal service served more than 22 million users worldwide".

"They were able to make over 250 million euros in illegal profits per month. The economic damages to the copyright holders of the material is estimated at 10 billion euros," Eurojust said.

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