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Flawless IPTV operators sentenced to 30 years in prison
treesmokah
Member
Five men behind pirate IPTV service 'Flawless' were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison today, after a private prosecution by the Premier League. A FACT test purchase in 2017 led to the involvement of four territorial police forces, three regional Trading Standards units, and the arrest of service kingpin, Mark Gould, in 2018. In less than two years, Flawless served over 50,000 UK households while generating millions in revenue.
Following an extraordinarily deep and costly investigation, and a five-year Premier League private prosecution, five men behind the UK’s largest-ever piracy service were sentenced today at Chesterfield Justice Centre.
Mark Gould, Steven Gordon, Peter Jolley, Christopher Felvus and William Brown were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison combined. A sixth defendant, Zak Smith, did not appear in court.
In total, Flawless operated for just 22 months but still managed to generate an estimated £4.6 million in revenue. £3.7 million of that was profit, split very unequally between those sent to prison today.
Mark Gould, 36, was the driving force behind Flawless. His share of the profit was around £1.7 million. Today he received an unprecedented 11-year sentence on two counts of conspiracy to defraud and contempt of court.
Steven Gordon’s cut was significant too, roughly £1 million according to the prosecution. Two counts of conspiracy to defraud and contempt of court led to a sentence of five years and two months.
Peter Jolley’s share of the profit was reported as £773,000. He received a sentence of five years and two months, on two counts of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.
Christopher Felvus’ share was a relatively modest £164,500. Two counts of conspiracy to defraud earned him a sentence of three years and 11 months.
William Brown made just £15,000 but after pleading not guilty and then losing his case, today he was sentenced to four years and nine months, on two counts of conspiracy to defraud.
Zak Smith appears to have made less than £5,000 from Flawless. He did not appear in court today and a warrant was issued for his arrest. (LOL!)
source;
https://torrentfreak.com/flawless-iptv-men-behind-uks-largest-pirate-service-jailed-for-30-years-230530/
https://tarnkappe.info/artikel/iptv/flawless-iptv-betreiber-zu-ueber-30-jahren-haft-verurteilt-275785.html
Do not support dmca mafia.
Their loses in revenue are marginal, yet they ruin real people lives.
People are jailed for significant time for things that used to be completely legal just a few years ago - but as a result of lobbying and big money from mafia, aren't anymore.
Copyrighting pixels on your screen is the dumbest shit I've seen in a while.
Comments
Yes, the DMCA are maffia.
But some dudes stealing content to make £4.6 million in 22 months are not.
There's SOME moral arguments that could be made that ThePirateBay for example were righteous.
This was just a get rich quick scheme, and if your end goal is monitization, there probably wasn't so much of a higher cause involved.
Just a few guys, wanting to get rich, thought they were above the law - turns out they were not.
They were above the law, dmca mafia paid to change it, they even have a fucking right to prosecute people now in UK.
So they're not above the law after all.
Don’t you think it to some degree fucks the righteousness up when you make millions pirating?
30 years is more than what you get for murder in most cases.
When you steal millions, at least have the decency to split it equally.
Yes, I agree, too long
But I’d feel a lot worse for them if they were driven by an ideological cause
To me it seems to be greed, just like those they were pirating from
So I don’t see how they’re much better
Without having read the court documents, I would imagine the reason for the severe jail time was this business-aspect of it
I’d doubt they’d get 30 years if they didn’t make millions off of it
Also 30 years was only the leader, right?
Do we know that the guy who made like 5 k didn’t just like design a logo or something?
guy that made 15k gbp got almost 5 years
it was combined, the "leader" got over 11 years.
Aha, that’s a little weird way of calulating it
The more people involved the higher the total jail time without it being more severe
Murder could have 1000 years jailtime if 300 people did it together
Anyway
Greed vs. Greed
No one’s righteous
its more than what you get for rape in the UK
Ironic
5 years is more than 4-19?
well, meant the "lowest" sentence.
its still fucking insane to me.
I do not think 300 people are able to murder one person.
Putting a little poison each into a glass of the victim
When a piracy service makes millions of dollars, they should try to become something legit, because at that point they have money to invest. Many companies have dirty foundations, but then businesses need to turn legal and play fair.
I feel some empathy for the people who did not make much money from this (like £15,000 and £5,000). They should not go to prison for years; but then again it's capitalism.
Generated 1.7 mil. and received 11 years. Real time served will be halfed for good behavior. So 6-7 years in hole and after that 1.7 mil. Not bad.
Rule of thumb is you don't fuck with Premier League.
Except they will get sued to shit for damages, Nintendo style.
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How come the one who earned £164k got a smaller sentence than the £15k fella?
Seems unfair IMO considering it looks like he was just a high-up "employee"
You found the snitch.
Francisco
It's called capitalism. Many times a corrupted politician who steals millions gets less punishment than a simple thief. Many times a corporation stealing millions gets less than a poor person stealing food or clothing. This is how capitalism works; and many times all you need is a good and expensive lawyer (or a whole law firm).
It will all be seized as proceeds of crime
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65697595
Interesting, it does not appear like he got charged with it though, at least regarding to TF and tarnkappe.
Woman killed 2 of my friends while driving drugged, despite the court having texts she sent to her friend joking "i definitely shouldn't be driving, lol"... 3 years, was out in less than 2 without even a driving ban. £15k of piracy... 5 years. Joke country.
I feel you mate.