Pirates in the Western Cape were recently raided by law enforcement. To be clear, we’re talking about digital pirates and not the seafaring sort.
The raids were led by MultiChoice and Irdeto, in conjunction with South African authorities, in February and March.
On 12th February, a search conducted together with the Provincial Commercial Investigation Unit in the Western Cape led to the arrest of a suspect. Two phones were seized and these will be examined forensically as part of ongoing investigations.
A second operation took place on 5th March and one suspect was arrested. This suspect was involved in illegal streaming activities and one phone was recovered. This raid was rather fruitful, according to MultiChoice.
“Investigators were able to access the suspect’s streaming management panel, where system credentials
were secured for further analysis. Preliminary findings revealed that the platform hosted 819 user
accounts, of which 715 were active at the time. All accounts have since been disabled and login
credentials changed to prevent further illegal activity,” MultiChoice wrote in a press release.
Both suspects were charged under the South African Cybercrime Act for the unauthorised access to and interception of data.
Arrests aren’t all MultiChoice is securing, it tied up a few court cases in February and March, as well.
On 3rd March, a person was found guilty of fraud, unlawful acts in respect of software or hardware tools in contravention of section 4(2) of the Cybercrimes Act (South Africa), and unlawful interception of data in terms of section 3(1) of the Act. For these crimes, they were given a five year sentence that was suspended for five years on condition the accused is not convicted of any other crimes that contravene the Cybercrimes Act.
On 12th February, a person was convicted of unlawfully providing passwords or access codes and cyber fraud in the Worcester Regional Court. That came with a sentence of eight years, wholly suspended. The accused has been placed under 36 months of correctional supervision which includes house arrest, 16 hours of community service every month and participation in rehab programmes.
A second case in the same court on the same day saw an accused found guilty for unlawful access, unlawful acts in respect of software or hardware tools, and cyber fraud. The court imposed suspended sentences of five and eight years’ imprisonment for the first two counts, respectively. For the cyber fraud charge, the accused was also sentenced to 36 months of correctional supervision, including house arrest, community service, and participation in social programmes.
“These outcomes form part of sustained anti-piracy enforcement efforts led by MultiChoice and Irdeto, working alongside law enforcement agencies to detect, investigate and prosecute illegal streaming operations. The arrests, prosecutions and sentencing send a clear signal that cybercrime and content piracy will not be tolerated,” noted Tobias Maja, Senior Anti-Piracy Manager at Irdeto.
MultiChoice has been on a warpath with pirates for the last few years already. The company has gone so far as to warn customers of those selling access to pirated content that they could find themselves in cuffs before long as well. We’re yet to hear of this happening though.
With Canal+ now urging MultiChoice to make money, there are bound to be more raids like this as the company tries to quell illegal access to its content.
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Brendyn Lotz
htxt.co.za
