The Spanish Police Raided the Pirate IPTV Service Supplier “Comprarcccam”

• The police in Spain have arrested seven individuals who are behind the Comprarccam service.
• This was a successful pirate IPTV and card-sharing service with 15,000 subscribers.
• The police stated that this was the most important operation of this type in the country.

The National Police in Spain has announced the dismantling of “Comprarcccam.es,” after six simultaneous raids and seven arrests in Zamora, Salamanca, Cordoba, Valencia, and Malaga. The particular platform, which is now displaying a seizure notice, was offering IPTV subscription services to at least 15,000 customers in Spain. The group behind it was openly promoting it through social media accounts, and even bought ads to help them sell more. Thus, tracking them down wasn’t a particularly hard thing for the Spanish police.

The investigation began in May 2019 when EGEDA, a copyright protection organization in Spain, filed a formal complaint against Comprarcccam. Upon further investigation, the police found that the IPTV service was also offering “card-sharing” services, which allow multiple people to access broadcasts from a single valid subscription card. That said, the operation was extensive and profitable. At the time of the raid and the take-down of the website, there were 5,673 users online. The items seized include 11,000 euros in cash ($11,900), seven gold bars, computers, laptops, mobile phones, etc. All online payment and bank accounts belonging to the seven arrested individuals were frozen too.

The police’s statement talked about one of the most important operations of this type in the country, which delivered a blow to the illegal distribution of pirated TV content throughout Spain. The police also added that the involved individuals were utilizing the identities of other persons in the financial institutions they used, so they are now facing identity fraud accusations as well. As for the estimated amount of damages incurred to the rightsholders due to the operation of Comprarccam, it was evaluated to be around 11.8 million Euros (approximately $12.7 million), while the Spanish treasury lost about 3.14 million Euros in taxes ($3.67 million).

The above figures aren’t very realistic, as they assume that the 15,000 subscribers would pay around 800 Euros per year to sign up on every service that was offered through Comprarcccam. Even so, the arrested individuals will almost definitely face these figures unchanged on their court trials, though. As for the subscribers of the IPTV service, it goes without saying that they should expect no refunds. These are hard times for the people of this world, but instead of reverting to piracy, you can enjoy free streaming services instead. Most of the paid platforms offer extensive free trial periods, too, so why not give them a try.