Thai Police and Interpol dismantle international illegal movie streaming platform
Thai police and Interpol dismantled an international platform that was illegally streaming pirated movies in Southeast Asia.
Officers raided two locations in Thailand's Chiang Mai province in a crackdown on the grey-market MYIPTV4K streaming service.
The internet protocol TV platform reportedly distributes films and TV shows in Singapore, Malaysia, and parts of Southeast Asia without copyright holders' permission.
Police on Thursday announced they have arrested Thai suspect Akkharawat, 33, on charges of jointly infringing copyright for commercial purposes through reproduction, adaptation, and public broadcasting of cinematographic works without permission.
Authorities said he had previously been arrested in a similar copyright infringement case in 2018.
Akkharawat denied the allegations. If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison and a fine of up to 800,000 baht.
Cops also seized 51 pieces of evidence, including financial documents, proof of payments to cloud computing providers, mobile phones, computers, and other digital equipment.
A Malaysian couple were arrested on similar offences as police stormed three locations in Selangor.
The pair were allegedly linked to the sale of MYIPTV4K access via an e-commerce platform called 'Unimax Pro'.
The anti-piracy collaboration was coordinated under INTERPOL's Stop Online Piracy project, with simultaneous raids in Thailand and Malaysia on February 10.
MYIPTV4K was an illegal IPTV service that allegedly streamed pirated movies, TV shows and premium content to paying subscribers.
It was promoted through e-commerce platforms, reseller networks and social media, with free trials, monthly plans and lifetime subscriptions.
However, copyright holders claimed the platform bypassed subscription systems by offering copyrighted content at a fraction of the legal price, triggering a multi-national investigation.
