A 68-year-old man has been sentenced to more than six years in prison after a UK investigation uncovered an illegal IPTV operation that generated almost £1 million over a three-year period.
Milan Ibrahim operated a large-scale streaming service that provided unauthorized access to copyrighted television, sports, and entertainment content to customers in the UK and other countries, according to the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at the City of London Police.
Investigators found that the operation relied on 80 servers located at premises in Chorley. Authorities said the service generated £980,812, approximately $1.3 million, during three years of operation.
The illegal streams included content belonging to major broadcasters and rights holders such as the BBC, ITV, Sky, the Premier League, and members of the Motion Picture Association.
Law enforcement officers seized all 80 servers identified during the investigation and shut them down. The action significantly disrupted the infrastructure used to deliver unauthorized streams to subscribers.
Ibrahim has now received a prison sentence of six and a half years for his involvement in the operation.
Authorities are also pursuing proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act. These proceedings are intended to recover money obtained through criminal activity and could result in authorities seeking to confiscate funds generated by the IPTV business.
Information obtained from the seized infrastructure could potentially provide investigators with additional details about how the service operated and who used it. However, authorities have not announced any action against individual subscribers in connection with this case.
Stefan Sergot, Director of Legal Enforcement at the Premier League, described the investigation as significant and said the service was among the UK’s most prominent and established suppliers of pirated streaming services.
Public company records also show that Ibrahim previously served as a director of CTU Systems, a company that has since been dissolved and had marketed IPTV-related software. Authorities have not stated that CTU Systems was connected to the illegal streaming operation for which Ibrahim was prosecuted.
The case was investigated by PIPCU, with the Federation Against Copyright Theft also participating in the enforcement action.
Illegal IPTV services commonly use internet-based infrastructure to redistribute television channels, live sporting events, films, and other copyrighted programming without authorization from the companies that own the broadcasting rights.
In Ibrahim’s case, investigators described the operation as sophisticated, with its network of 80 servers supporting customers domestically and overseas. The seizure and shutdown of that infrastructure brought the service to an end, while financial recovery proceedings against Ibrahim are still expected to follow.