Europol, in collaboration with French media company Canal+ the Kudelski Group, and local authorities; has shut down a major pirate in the Lake Geneva region; which was said to be the first seizure of its kind in Switzerland. It operated across Europe, with servers in Switzerland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
KBoxServ was a sophisticated pirate operation hosting more than 7,000 movies and ten times that number of television episodes.
Read more via Europol
Read Nagra news release
Why it matters
Nagra characterized it as a “true pirate broadcasting station,” which reached thousands of users. It promoted its service through social media and bundled its service with illicit streaming devices that were sold in Swiss and French retail shops.
“Today’s shutdown is yet another example of how close collaboration between content producers and owners, governmental entities and anti-piracy companies can bring tangible results in the fight against commercial piracy,” said Pascal Métral, VP Legal Affairs and Head of Anti-Piracy Investigations, Intelligence and Litigation at Nagra, an anti-piracy technology provider.
Police in the Swiss canton of Vaud led the effort with the support of Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union, and Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation.