LOS ANGELES – The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal ecosystem for creative content, today applauded recent actions by the Spanish National Police and Europol to shutter “TV Choice Spain,” an illegal internet protocol TV (IPTV) service used by more than 500,000 viewers across Europe.
The coordinated action, which was actively supported by ACE, took place Oct. 19. Authorities raided the main suspects’ residences in Marbella, Spain, and arrested four people, shut down nine IPTV servers, froze bank accounts containing 3 million euros, and detected multiple offshore bank accounts. They also seized assets, including equipment, financial data on resellers, multiple servers, and Tesla and Range Rover vehicles valued at 180,000 euros.
The illegal network provided pirated content internationally via local resellers. The suspects operated via multiple entities, including “Great TV Choice,” “Best TV Choice” and “TV Choice Spain.” Additionally, the illicit services were promoted via real estate agencies, mainly in the coastal areas of the country.
“ACE is proud to support the effective actions taken by the Spanish National Police and Europol against this illegal IPTV piracy ring,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “We are honored to continue our work with law enforcement agencies and other partners around the world in our crucial fight to combat large-scale piracy operations and protect the creative marketplace.”
In a statement, the Spanish National Police thanked ACE for filing the initial complaint in 2020 that launched the investigation. “The first police investigation revealed the existence of an organization that, since 2012, had been massively and fraudulently marketing and distributing, through different companies, audiovisual content from different subscription-based television platforms. Specifically, they were offering their clients different subscription packages consisting of more than 2,600 television channels and 23,000 movies and series,” the police said in the statement.
The four suspects also had more than 95 resellers located in Spain, United Kingdom, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece, according to the police. The organization laundered its profits, which amounted to around 3 million euros per year, by acquiring real estate and personal property in Malaga and sending funds through Spanish companies to bank accounts located in tax havens.
About The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal market and reducing digital piracy. Driven by a comprehensive approach to addressing piracy through criminal referrals, civil litigation and cease-and-desist operations, ACE has achieved many successful global enforcement actions against illegal streaming services and sources of unauthorized content and their operators. Drawing upon the collective expertise and resources of more than 40 media and entertainment companies around the world and reinforced by the content protection operations of the Motion Picture Association, ACE protects the creativity and innovation that drive the global growth of core copyright and entertainment industries. The current governing board members for ACE are Amazon, Apple TV+, NBCUniversal, Netflix Studios LLC, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Warner Bros. Charles Rivkin is Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association and Chairman of ACE. For more information, please visit www.alliance4creativity.com.
Media Contact
John Mercurio
john_mercurio@motionpictures.org
