Five British men were jailed for running an illegal English League streaming business from 2016 to 2021.
They are Mark Gould, Steven Gordon, Peter Jolley, Christopher Felvus, William Brown, and Zak Smith. His income from the illegal service was no joke, reaching USD 8.6 million, which was obtained over five years from around 50 thousand customers.
Its main business is the Premier League, aka matches and various other content from the English League. One of the services they operate is Flawless IPTV, which operates from 2016 to 2018, hijacking more than 300 TV shows from official and unofficial sources, at a cost of USD 12 per month.
For information, the official subscription fee for watching the Premier League in England is around USD 75 to USD 100 per month, as quoted by a from Techspot, Monday (5/6/2023).
So the fees paid to these plows are much cheaper. In fact, for resellers the cost is even cheaper. That is UDS 8 per month. From there alone their income has reached USD 5.7 million for two years, of which USD 2.1 million was taken by Gould.
Then the service evolved into Optimal in 2018, created by Gordon and Jolley. But it didn't last long because these two people even infected the server with malware.
Then came Flawless 2, which is a Shared VPS, which was released after the first Gould was arrested in 2018. This service generated USD 3.22 million between 2018 and 2021.
This case is investigated by a joint team from various bodies. Such as the British anti-piracy organization FACT, the Premier League, the police, and a number of other bodies.
The prison sentence for the 5 people varies, and if totaled reaches 30 years. The longest sentence was handed down to Gould who made the biggest profit. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
While Gordon (made a profit of USD 1.2 million) and Jolley (USD 956 thousand) were sentenced to 5 years and 2 months in prison, Felvus (USD 203 thousand) was sentenced to three years and 11 months, Brown (USD 18 thousand) was sentenced to four years and nine months. While Zak Smith who only got USD 6 thousand did not appear in court and became a fugitive.
Smith is said to be an anti-piracy company used by the Premier League. The aim is to ensure that hijackers are blocked by ISPs when they show English League matches.