European and international law enforcement agencies have dismantled 9 organized crime groups and arrested 29 suspects in a major crackdown on illegal broadcasting.
The seven-month “Operation KRATOS 2” was coordinated by Bulgaria with the support of Europol and involved authorities from 13 countries, including Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Working with private sector partners also helped investigators stamp more than 18,000 IP addresses associated with illegal services and 4,370 domains linked to crime, as well as nearly 400,000 URLs flagged for suspension or removal and more than 126,000 other infringing items.
In total, this joint action resulted in the removal of over 27,000 illegal streaming URLs linked to the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted sports, film, and television content.
In addition to the arrest of these, law enforcement identified 86 suspects, searched 148 houses, referred 59 cases to judicial officials, and are busy with 72 criminal investigations.
Europol said the criminal groups behind these services deliberately separate customer-facing websites from servers hosting illegal content, allowing them to operate from multiple locations to avoid detection and prosecution.
“Instead of focusing only on taking down websites, investigators are focusing on the wider criminal system behind these services,” Europol said on Wednesday. “This approach has enabled authorities to gather information about organized crime groups operating behind the scenes and identify key suspects involved in their management and technical operations.”
Europol also warned that, in addition to generating significant revenue for the criminals who run them, these services expose their users to serious cybersecurity risks, including malware infection, spyware, and data theft.
This joint action follows Operation KRATOS, another international anti-piracy operation launched in the summer of 2024 and led by the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior with the support of Europol and Eurojust.
Operation KRATOS shut down an illegal streaming network with more than 22 million users worldwide, while law enforcement also arrested 11 people, identified 102 suspects, and conducted 112 searches.
In January, Europol, Eurojust, and Interpol coordinated Operation Switch Off, another global law enforcement operation that led to the seizure of three illegal industrial IPTV services.
Recently, in May, the Italian authorities dismantled the CINEMAGOAL piracy platform, which provided illegal access to streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney + and Spotify.
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