Police Take Down Pirate Streaming App with 100mn Users

Illegal streaming app Mobdro has been taken out of service following an operation led by the Spanish National Police (Policía Nacional) with support from law enforcement in Andorra and Portugal. Over 100 million users had downloaded Mobdro, an Android app that played video content including live football from the top European leagues. Investigators estimated that the business running Mobdro’s service generated profits of more than EUR5mn (USD6mn). A statement from Europol explained:

The Spanish company behind the illegal activity earned its profits through advertisements. Through the computer infrastructure and power, they were able to sell user information to a company related to botnet and DDoS attacks.

Police raided houses (pictured) and made a total of four arrests. The infrastructure supporting Mobdro was found to include websites in Spain and Portugal and servers in Czechia. Various domains and servers were blocked or taken down as a result of the operation.

An announcement from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) highlighted how the private sector underpins and instigates law enforcement in order to protect intellectual property rights.

The investigative work undertaken by ACE and the Premier League served as the foundation for this case. The Spanish National Police Cybercrime Central Unit led the enforcement action and Europol coordinated the international links in this case.

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalnshttp://revenueprotect.com

Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), an association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers. RAG was founded in 2003 and Eric was appointed CEO in 2016.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press.

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