Next week, the trial against the three men behind IPTV King begins. IPTV King was previously Sweden’s largest illegal IPTV service. In just two years, 2017–2019, the suspects received over SEK 46,000,000 in Swish payments alone. More than 32,000 payments from nearly 20,000 unique phone numbers were made. They also received direct payments with Bitcoin.
The links to international organized crime are clear. IPTV King was a direct reseller of one of the world’s largest illegal IPTV services, which was then called IPTV Stack and was mainly administered from Spain. In 2020, coordinated raids occurred in several countries, including at the now-indicted men in Sweden.
The main suspect behind IPTV King was also involved in the investigation on IPTV Stack, and there were both money transfers and communication between the Swedish suspects and the main suspect in IPTV Stack. House searches were conducted simultaneously in Sweden and Spain at the suspects’ homes. In real-time, the Spanish main suspect was then checking surveillance cameras from the Swedish main suspect’s home. At the time, the Spanish police could see what the Swedish police were doing inside the house from the Spanish suspect’s screens.
According to the Spanish police, the suspects appear to have started several companies to launder income from the illegal IPTV business.
The main suspect in the case has been wanted internationally since 2000 but was hiding in Turkey until he was recently arrested. In mid-January, he was indicted, and the trial against him and the two other suspects is scheduled to begin on January 28 and end on February 5 at the Patent and Market Court.
It is remarkable how crimes that generate such staggering amounts of money are still given such low priority and attention in society. There is no indication that illegal IPTV is decreasing, but on the contrary, it is constantly increasing.
The problems with suspects staying abroad are not new but problematic. During this time, parts of the crime period had time to expire, and the other suspects were forced to wait several years for their trial.
See article from SVT after the 2020 crackdown here.
Publicerad: 2025-01-24