Police seize £1.2m of kit from streaming operation

More than £1.2m worth of equipment has been seized after police shut down an illegal streaming operation.

The raid on a data centre in Farnborough, Hampshire, was led by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at the City of London Police and disrupted thousands of illegal streams across the UK.

Two people were arrested, with £700,000 taken from one of the individuals. They have both been released under investigation.

Police have warned that illegal streaming services can compromise electronic devices and expose people's personal data to criminals.

During the operation, PIPCU worked with Sky to dismantle the pirate infrastructure at the centre, which hosted clusters of high-bandwidth servers that supplied illicit streams to thousands of users across the UK.

The seized equipment will now be forensically examined by police.

Det Sgt Ben Hobbs, from PIPCU, said the raid - which was prompted by a report of suspicious activity - showed how widespread illegal streaming has become in the UK.

"If you plan to stream, ensure you only use official and not pirated sources to protect yourself from the risks," he said.

PIPCU said that viewers of illegal streams can be exploited by criminals able to access online data, including banking information.

Matt Hibbert, group director of anti-piracy at Sky, said: "Illegal streaming is part of organised criminality that undermines the creative industries and causes harm to consumers.

"Continued partnership between police and industry is essential to disrupt these operations, protect our content, and keep consumers safe from the harmful risks it poses."