The Judicial Police (PJ) dismantled an international network for the illegal exchange of films and series in an operation that led to the arrest of three defendants in Portugal and in which US FBI security forces cooperated.
According to a press release issued on Tuesday, an investigation into digital piracy by the National Cybercrime and Technology Crime Unit (UNC3T) in conjunction with the Department of Public Administration (MP) began following a complaint from some of North America’s largest companies in the audiovisual sector. namely Disney, Paramount Pictures, Universal City Studios, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros, Netflix and Amazon.
The complaint was directed at “an international criminal group widely known in illegal forums for distributing cinematic content by the EVO Release Group” which, according to the JV, “was one of the world’s most active pirate groups in the distribution of copyrighted audiovisual products. “. “since 2019.
As part of Operation EVO 1.2 in Portugal, houses were searched, computer equipment was confiscated, and three defendants were named on suspicion of belonging to the EVO group.
The alleged leader of the group in Portugal was detained and subjected to various coercive measures, such as a ban on contact with other defendants, a ban on access to certain “websites” and related servers, and a ban on the purchase of computer equipment.
For the JV, crimes related to illegal access, computer fraud, money laundering, tax fraud and crimes against authors’ rights, namely usurpation and criminal association, will be at stake.
“The group provided access to various audiovisual content (namely movies and series) illegally removed from the victims’ servers, causing damages worth more than 1,000,000.00 euros through a P2P exchange,” the statement said.
A PJ investigation launched in early 2022 revealed that the EVO release team acted by extracting the contents of the targets, transcoding them with specialized computer materials for later distribution on illegal platforms on the Internet.
The group’s servers, which hosted illegal content, were located in the United States of America, and the FBI assisted in their deactivation.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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