Italy dismantles major streaming piracy network

The operation targeted technology built around an application called Cinemagoal, which connected users' devices to foreign servers that illegally ⁠decrypted streaming content.

The operation involved about 200 financial police officers. They carried out more than 100 searches and seizures all over the peninsula.

The aim was to hit the complex system of pirate subscriptions set up by Cinemagoal, which allowed users to enjoy the content of Sky, Dazn, Netflix, Spotify, and Disney+.

An annual subscription to the Cinemagoal service costs between €40 and €130, depending on the package chosen. At least 70 people were reportedly in charge of distributing the product throughout Italy.

Italian police discovered that the application connected customers' devices to a foreign server to decrypt the materials they wanted to access.

Virtual machines operated around the clock on Italian soil, capturing and retransmitting access codes from legitimate subscriptions registered to fictitious account holders.

The system bypassed streaming platforms' security checks and did not require a connection directly associated with a ‌specific ⁠IP address.

Italian police worked with Eurojust, the EU agency for criminal judicial cooperation.

Italian media said that the first 1,000 subscribers have been identified and will be notified of fines of up to €5,000. The material seized will also enable police to trace the identity of all those involved.

"I want to thank the Guardia di Finanza of Ravenna and the Prosecutor's Office of Bologna for this important anti-piracy operation that demonstrates the increasing effectiveness in countering even the most sophisticated technologies," said Andrea Duilio, CEO of Sky Italia, adding that "those who choose illegal streaming not only feed the multi-million profits of criminal organisations, but also risk fines and expose their personal data to theft and fraud".

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