The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and Egyptian authorities have shut down Streameast, the world’s largest illegal live sports streaming network, and arrested two people allegedly associated with the operation.
Streameast, operational since 2018, was a free streaming service supported by advertisements, providing access to HD streams from licensed broadcasters.
Streameast reportedly operates 80 domains, which collectively receive 136 million monthly visits. In the past year, the platform logged 1.6 billion trips, primarily from the United States, Canada, the UK, the Philippines, and Germany.
The sports piracy platform streamed unauthorized coverage of soccer leagues, including England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, Germany’s Bundesliga, France’s Ligue 1, Portugal’s Primeira Liga, and the U.S.’s MLS.
It also covered national team games from the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro, and UEFA Nations League, as well as the Copa América, and international club competitions such as the Champions League and Europa League.
Streameast broadcasts streams from major U.S. sports, including NFL (football), NBA (basketball), NHL (hockey), MLB (baseball), as well as PPV boxing, MMA, and various motorsports events from around the world, such as Formula One and MotoGP.
The first signs of operational disruption at the illegal streaming service came six days ago, when users reported on Reddit that they had trouble accessing the website, or that streams and chats didn’t load for them.
Today, ACE confirmed that the streaming platform was disrupted with the help of Egyptian authorities.
“Dismantling Streameast is a major victory for everyone who invests in and relies on the live sports ecosystem,” stated Ed McCarthy, COO of DAZN Group.
“This criminal operation was siphoning value from sports at every level and putting fans across the world at risk.”
According to the New York Times, two people were arrested in El-Sheikh Zaid in the Giza Governorate of Egypt, with the police confiscating laptops, smartphones, cash, and multiple credit cards.
Investigators have reportedly linked the streaming operation to a UAE shell company that was allegedly used to launder advertising revenue of $6.2 million since 2010, as well as an additional $200,000 in cryptocurrency.
Eighty of the domains previously belonging to Streameast now redirect to ACE’s “Watch Legally” website, which contains links to legal content hosting platforms.
However, BleepingComputer could still locate domains that don’t redirect to ACE’s page, so it’s likely that the law enforcement operation didn’t seize all of them, or that new ones were registered in a short time.
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