This morning the Italian Guardia di Finanza blacked out Xtream Codes, a well-known online platform that allowed the illegal streaming of various paid content, especially football matches, as part of an investigation carried out throughout Europe.
The measure was taken as part of an operation against the so-called IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), that is the platforms that make it possible to illegally obtain paid content on the internet via satellite TV: it is the system underlying the so-called “pezzotto ”, With which in Italy tens of thousands of people illegally watch Serie A matches. According to a recent estimate by Corriere della Sera, it is a market that is worth 200 million euros a year in Italy alone. In addition to the blackout of the site, the investigation identified around 25 suspects across Europe.
The Xtream platform hosted various IPTVs, essentially streaming channels that illegally broadcast pay TV, managed through a pyramid mechanism that at the base had several package dealers, which cost a few euros and allowed to receive the contents of paid services such as Sky Sport, DAZN but also Netflix and Mediaset Premium, sometimes through the purchase of a decoder (called “pezzotto”). According to investigators, such operations were particularly widespread in Lombardy, Veneto, Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily. In Italy alone, investigators estimate that there were about 5 million users.
Going up the pyramid some intermediaries acted who converted the television signal into a data stream available on the Internet and passed it through dozens of servers around the world. Holding the structure was a Bulgarian company, Xtream Codes Ltd, run by two Greek citizens. At the time of the blackout, around 700,000 users across Europe were using the Xtream platform, according to the Guardia di Finanza. Giovanni Reccia, commander of the Special Unit for the Protection of Privacy and Technological Frauds of the Guardia di Finanza, during the press conference in which he presented the operation, explained that all Xtream customers risk being indicted for crimes involving up to three years in prison and a € 28,000 fine (although it seems unlikely that tens of thousands of people will actually end up on trial).
At the same time as the operation of the Guardia di Finanza, various other checks were carried out in the Netherlands, France, Greece, Germany and Bulgaria, and the European agencies Eurojust and Europol collaborated in the operation.
