The plot was arranging of more than 60.000 clients, mostly members of the British community settled down in the Spanish Levant, who were paying approximately 590 euros for the installation expenses, more a few monthly quotas of between 18 and 22 euros, depending on the employed channels.

In the operation "Scimitar", there have been detained 14 members of the network, eight Spanish, three Britons, a Byelorussian, a Rumanian and Russian, which were receiving the sign of the channels and were expressing them on the Levantine coast without paying the corresponding rights and without declaring the benefits to the State property.

In 22 practised records computer teams have seized, technical material of reception and emission of television, decoders, mixers and 5 million euros in cash.


Investigations

The investigations began immediately after the denunciation presented by a representative of Sogecable, after detecting that certain British channels of Alicante were expressing contents which rights in Spain correspond exclusive to this digital platform.

After investigating the infrastructure used by the organization, it was possible to be proved that in a ship placed in an industrial park of Algorfa (Alicante), the band had satellite dishes and decoders hired in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

These technical means were allowing to receive the sign of several British chains of television for satellite, that descodificaban and they were codifying again using a system named IRDETO, later they were distributing it to his clients of the coast from Benidorm up to the locality of Edge (Almeria) across a network of proper repeaters.

There was declaring the incoherent network a very low number of subscribers which really it had and also it was distributing illegally the sign in Spanish territory, without having the rights for it.

The installation in the domicile of the clients was consisting of a specific antenna for the used frequencies of emission and a device decoder that only was working with a card with the only numeration for every client, which was making possible to cut the sign in case of absence of payment.

The investigations have been carried out by the Team of Judicial Police officer of the Civil Guard of Torrevieja (Alicante).


(Agencies, 24/09/08)