UK Police Raids Target Sky TV IPTV Piracy in Coordinated Crackdown
Published on July 8, 2025
- PIPCU U.K. seized IPTV servers and conducted two arrests tied to Sky TV piracy.
- A man and a woman were arrested on suspicion of copyright violations and financial crimes.
- Seven servers were seized, disrupting multiple IPTV services, following searches at a residential address and a data center.
U.K. police and private sector partners conducted coordinated raids last week, resulting in the arrest of two suspects and the seizure of multiple servers linked to the illegal IPTV streaming of Sky TV content, as part of a major enforcement action against digital piracy.
On July 3, 2025, members of the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), working in partnership with Sky TV’s anti-piracy team, carried out search warrants at a residential property in Oldbury and a datacenter in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Authorities detained a 30-year-old man—believed to be operating an unnamed IPTV service—and a 32-year-old woman, both on suspicion of copyright offenses and financial crimes.
Investigators also seized seven servers, an action described by law enforcement as having caused significant disruption to several pirate IPTV services. Photos released by PIPCU from inside the targeted datacenter indicate the operation’s scale and technical complexity.
The raid follows months of investigation into the illegal distribution of premium Sky TV broadcasts, a persistent issue for entertainment rightsholders and broadcasters in the U.K.
Sky’s Group Director of Anti-Piracy, Matt Hibbert, expressed gratitude to the police, stressing continued collaboration with law enforcement and industry groups such as the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) to combat organized digital piracy.
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