Italian authorities say they have dismantled a large-scale streaming piracy network that allegedly caused an estimated €300 million (around USD 348 million) in losses to media and entertainment companies, including Netflix, Disney+, Spotify, Sky and DAZN.
According to a recent report by Reuters, Italy’s financial police said that the operation centred on a previously unknown technology system linked to an application called CINEMAGOAL, which enabled users to access illegally decrypted streaming content through foreign servers.
The police also added that virtual machines operating continuously within Italy captured and retransmitted access credentials from legitimate subscriptions registered under fictitious account holders every three minutes.
Investigators said the system was designed to bypass security measures used by streaming platforms and did not rely on connections tied to identifiable IP addresses, making it more difficult for authorities and companies to detect users. Subscriptions to the illegal service were reportedly sold for between €40 and €130 annually.
Prosecutors in Bologna, working alongside Eurojust, secured the seizure of foreign servers that allegedly stored decryption data and the source code for the application. Parallel enforcement actions were also carried out in France and Germany.
Authorities also said they uncovered the use of traditional illegal streaming devices, commonly referred to in Italy as “pezzotto”. Around 1,000 users identified through the investigation are expected to face fines ranging from €154 to €5,000, as per the Reuters report.