Law enforcement agents took offline servers all over the world, including in South Korea, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France Germany, Latvia, Romania, Poland, Spain and others. Photo courtesy of Europol/
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Aug. 27 (UPI) -- A global law enforcement operation said it has dismantled one of the largest international piracy rings accused of illegally distributing television shows and movies online.
In a statement on Wednesday, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation said the joint operation of 19 countries including the United States dismantled the criminal network of hackers called Sparks Group on Tuesday, resulting in more than 60 servers in North America, Europe and Asia being taken down with several of the organization's main suspects being arrested.
Eurojust said Sparks Groups' piracy caused the U.S. movie, television and supporting industries to lose tens of millions of dollars a year.
"By deceiving the legal distributors with fraudulent reasoning, they obtained legal copies of DVD and Blu-Ray disks of blockbuster movies, television shows and other content in advance of their release dates, compromised their copyright protections and then uploaded and distributed the illegal copies via servers operated by the [organized crime group]," Eurojust said.
The joint operation accused the group of making the stolen content available online via streaming websites, peer-to-peer networks, torrent networks and other servers accessible to the public prior to their retail release date, causing major losses to the film production industry.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday unsealed indictments charging Umar Ahmad, 36; George Bridi, 50; and Jonatan Correa, 36; with participating in the copyright infringement conspiracy, the Justice Department said in a release.
Bridi, a British citizen, was arrested in Cyprus by Interpol on Sunday and the Justice Department said it will seek his extradition to stand trial in the United States while Correa was arrested Tuesday in Olathe, Kan.; and Ahmad, a citizen of Norway, remains at large.
Acting U.S. attorney Audrey Strauss described the group they are accused of being apart of as a sophisticated and widespread piracy ring.
"The group allegedly circumvented copyright protections on nearly every movie released by major production studios, as well as television shows and distributed them by way of a worldwide network of servers," Strauss said in a statement.
Court documents accused the trio of being members of the conspiracy since 2011.
Prosecutors said Sparks Group members obtained the copyrighted material it would illegally place online by misrepresenting themselves to the wholesale distributors.
Ahmad and Bridi arranged for the discs to be picked up, mailed or delivered from the U.S. distributors to other Sparks Group members, including Correa, who would then through the use of computer software reproduce the copyrighted material so it could be disseminated online, the Justice Department said.
Each count of copyright infringement conspiracy against the trio carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Bridi has also been charged with wire fraud conspiracy, which comes with a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars, and conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate that comes with another maximum sentence of five years.
"Copyright criminals have come a long way from bootlegging movies in local theaters and selling inferior quality videos and DVDs on the streets of New York City for $5," Philip R. Bartlett, USPIS inspector-in-charge, said in a statement. "The movies and TV shows allegedly stolen by these defendants not only represent a body of work ripped off from those who spent years developing their craft and working their way to stardom, but deprives the studios and actors of the fruits for their labor."
