La Liga piracy: 166 bars raided

Spain’s Policía Nacional (National Police) officers have raided 166 hotel companies in an operation targeting illicit screenings of football matches. The venue is accused of intellectual property crimes against markets and consumers.

It is estimated that the economic losses caused to rights owners by illegally distributed content amount to more than €1,000,000.

The investigation began in January 2022 as a result of complaints filed by La Liga against companies in various Spanish provinces that illegally distributed broadcasts of Spanish teams’ matches, without the permission of the rights owners.

The operation is part of a global campaign against piracy that also affects 1,200 other publicly traded companies, which have been the subject of numerous lawsuits. The company that was reported to police headquarters was repeatedly identified as an illegal broadcaster over the past three seasons.

During the investigation, agents carried out appropriate checks on commercial companies that broadcast football matches from the LaLiga Santander, LaLiga SmartBank and UEFA Champions League competitions. After various investigations, it was confirmed that 166 companies in various Spanish cities – Seville, Malaga, Cordoba, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Gijón, Madrid, Vigo, Las Palmas, Bilbao and Barcelona – were involved in the fraud screening. of the football game.

On this basis, an operation was launched to carry out coordinated inspections of all commercial companies investigated during one of the LaLiga Santander matchdays. As a result, the entire infrastructure that allowed the illegal viewing of games was dismantled, with the identification of those responsible and the closure of the illegal services they provided.

The owners of the company are accused of crimes against intellectual property and against markets and consumers who are allegedly responsible for distributing audiovisual content in a fraudulent manner, because they access illegally protected content broadcast on encrypted channels via decoders.

As a result, they gain a fraudulent economic advantage because they offer the possibility of watching sporting events, available only through encrypted channels that allow them additional services not offered by other companies. Genshindata News