Former Police Officer Sentenced for Selling Pirate IPTV Boxes

• A former UK police officer has received a 12-month imprisonment sentence for selling pirate boxes.
• The man was already in jail for running a cannabis farm and set up the IPTV business while out on bail.
• It is possible that UK broadcasters will now submit complaints asking for damage compensation.

Daniel Aimson, a former police officer in the UK, has just received a sentence of 12 months in prison for selling pre-configured pirate IPTV boxes. According to a joint investigation of the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the man had incorporated a company named “A1MSN Ltd” in 2016, for the purpose of selling TV boxes through retail stores in the country. The company was dissolved in about 14 months, after having sold approximately 1,640 illicit IPTV devices and making a lot of money in the process.

GMP has estimated the losses of copyright holders to be around $2,124 million. Still, Sky TV maintains that they have lost around £5 million in subscriptions that were passed through the A1MSN platform instead. As the head of investigations stated outside the Manchester Crown Court: “Aimson was making enormous amounts of money from what he knew to be an illegal activity. He was a police employee with a good career. That is now in tatters and he’s facing a lengthy prison sentence during which to contemplate his foolish and deceitful actions.”

But Daniel Aimson was not imprisoned due to selling pirate IPTV boxes. In fact, he is currently serving a six-year sentence for running a cannabis farm, so he was generally not the most law-abiding citizen in Manchester. When Aimson was out on bail for the drug offenses, he immediately seized the opportunity to make quick money by selling illicit IPTV boxes. Although A1MSN Ltd was incorporated under his wife’s name, Rachel Aimson, the investigators managed to trace back the operations to him.

So, while he had another 3.5 years remaining for the cannabis farm offense, Daniel Aimson received another 12 months for selling pirate IPTV boxes. However, this sentence is most probably going to be cut in half in practice, as this is usually the case with such offenses. As for compensations, Aimson was previously ordered to pay £65,000 in three months for the cannabis farm, but the IPTV operation will incur much higher penalties. It is clear that the former police officer has made a lot of money through this operation, much more than he did by selling drugs in Northern Wales. That said, Sky TV and other UK media companies may submit an official complaint on the court now, asking for the approval of an order for damage compensation.