Cybercrooks Responsible for Illegal TV Show Sites Brought Down by FBI and Romanian Police

In a perfect world, those of us with the tech savvy means would all attempt to stream all of our entertainment instead of relying on expensive cable and satellite TV services. Currently, there are few viable alternatives to cable and satellite service but most are illegal streaming sites. Of those sites, three, in particular have been taken offline after a joint investigation by Romanian and US authorities.

Law enforcement agencies have been steadily busy at work tackling many hacker groups and cybercriminal actions. With the help of the FBI, Romanian police were able to arrest three people and confiscate various server equipment that ties in with three sites that illegally provided pirated TV shows over the Internet.

Pirated software has always been a big issue while TV shows and movies streamed illegally over the internet stirs the pot with law officials even more due to the stringent laws from the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Additionally, other countries have copyright laws in place that have dire consequences for those who break the rules.

The three individuals arrested for their illegal TV Show streaming on the internet are alleged to have run three sites in total that some were charging users between €3 and €7 for access to the TV show database. Moreover, the same individuals were responsible for illegally selling teleshopping goods digging deeper into the investigation spearheaded by Romanian police as well as help from the FBI in America.

Other than facing copyright infringement accusations, the persons arrested in the raids will also face charges of money laundering in the amount of (2,000,000 Romanian Lei / $500,000 / €458,000), which was believe to be used to supplement their administrated web pages that provided the illegal TV shows.

To bring these cybercriminals to justice, the FBI along with the prosecutor's office and High Court of Cassation and Justice in Romania, initiated their investigation efforts in 2011. Since that time, the investigation has given way to many surprising discoveries of cybercriminal activity. The perpetrators in this specific case have lead to unrooting the headquarters of a Romanian Web hosting company, xServers, and ten other locations across Bucharest.

Part of the investigations over a period of four years has had the FBI and Romanian police uncover most of their information through the Darkode forum, where many of these hackers meet online and share information. The information uncovered on the forum proved to be valuable to the point that it leads to the take down of the three individuals alleged to be responsible for their illegal TV show sites.
If the perpetrators are found guilty, they could face between 3 and 10 years in prison – and they won't have any Internet access in case you are wondering.