An illegal live streaming operation offering access to BT Sport content, including matches from the Premier League, UEFA Champions League and more, has been seized by police and its owner is being hunted down.
Mark Brockley, from Liverpool, is said to have made around £237,000 via the illegal IPTV setup between 2014-2019.
Mr. Brockley was initially questioned by police in July 2019, when his house was raised and his laptop and mobile phone were taken by police. Police acted on reports they had received from British Telecom (BT) of a Twitter account with the name Infinity IPTV advertising access to BT Sport streams at reduced prices.
It was ascertained by City of London police that Brockley had made his fortune across more than 5,000 sales of his IPTV service across the five years he was active.
Brockley sentenced to five years in prison
Four years after the search of his home and his interview with police, Mark Brockley has been sentenced to five years in prison, ironically the same number of years during which he offered his subscribers illegal access to BT Sport coverage of the Premier League and beyond.
However, the man from Liverpool was sentenced in his absence, as he is believed to have fled the country shortly after initially being interviewed by police.
Officers speculate that Brockley travelled to France in order to avoid being prosecuted, and it is unknown where he currently resides. Mr Brockley will therefore begin serving his five-year prison sentence if and when he is eventually found and brought into custody by police.
Detective Constable Geoffrey Holbrook, from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police, said:
“Brockley made tens of thousands of pounds from an illegal activity and used the money to fund his lifestyle.
“Despite being interviewed by PIPCU officers and knowing that his actions were against the law, he continued to sell IPTV subscriptions and then left the country in an attempt to avoid the consequences of his actions.
“We are now appealing for information on Brockley’s whereabouts, and ask anyone who may be able to help to contact the City of London Police.”
With the cost of living crisis ravaging households up and down the UK, and the cost of watching football legally at an all time high - see our Premier League Price Index for those eye-watering figures - it's little wonder the illegal live streaming market continues to thrive.
Infinity IPTV may have been shut down but there remain plenty of alternatives out there on the market, and there will always be someone looking to fill that gap and make some money.
What exactly is IPTV and is it always illegal?
IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television and isn't in itself illegal. IPTV is simply a way to broadcast content to consumers over the internet, without using terrestrial television. Every streaming service you can think of is an IPTV business - Netflix, Prime Video, etc.
However, with the advent of illegal live streaming IPTV operations, the term has become unfairly associated with criminality and now has a certain stigma attached to it.
It remains unclear how long this murky underworld of illegal live streaming operations will go on for, but until the sports broadcasting world, particularly football, finds a way to market its product to consumers in a more affordable way, we can expect such services to continue to be attractive to the average, low income sports fan.
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