A gang in the UK has been jailed for more than 30 years for providing a pirated sports broadcasting service. In Brazil, even with Anatel increasing enforcement, the illegal sale of catonet is still widespread. However, convictions are still rare.
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However, this does not mean that it is impossible to arrest pirates in Brazil. Recently, in Carabiquipa, São Paulo, two men were arrested for earning BRL 550,000 a month selling Gatonet kits to customers for between BRL 25 and 22,000. The process includes a call center, a pyramid scheme and payments through Pix.
In England, the owners of the illegal streaming service, Mark Gould, Steven Gordon, Peter Jolly, Christopher Felves and William Brown, were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison, with a maximum sentence of 11 years. A sixth defendant, Zach Smith, did not appear in court.
30 years imprisonment for pirates
The team received signals from broadcasters in countries like United Kingdom, Qatar, United States, Australia and Canada and transmitted them through a flawless application developed by them. The app delivered Premier League matches and other content to smartphones and smart TVs, allowing users to choose what they wanted to watch from an on-screen program guide.
The illegal activity had a significant impact on subscription package sales for Sky and Virgin Media, which were authorized to broadcast the games. The gang raised £7.2 million (roughly R$ 44 million) between 2016 and 2021, with leader Gould alone earning £1.7 million (roughly R$ 10 million).
In Brazil, the national telecommunications company (Anatel) is fighting Catonet’s practice, which costs pay TV companies R$ 15 billion a year. Setting up a clandestine signal distribution center is an offense punishable with imprisonment of two to four years in addition to a fine.
In addition to being illegal, having a Catonet at home poses a security risk to home Internet networks. Pirate TV Box models can steal data from devices connected to the same network, including cell phone or computer screen captures, and can be used to launch denial-of-service attacks using the network they’re connected to.
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