A man from east London has avoided jail after selling almost £250,000 worth of illegal sports and television content.
Riki Adal, 43, from Hackney, promoted illegal streaming services branded Mighty Plex, Mighty TV and Mighty Flex on Facebook and Telegram from 2017 to 2022.
He pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court on November 2, 2023 to the acquisition of criminal property and distributing articles infringing copyright following an investigation by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police.
He was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court on February 6 to 20 months imprisonment, suspended for 24 months, and must also complete a 20 day rehabilitation activity requirement.
Detective Jason Theobald, from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police, said: “Illegal streaming costs the entertainment industry millions every year, putting legitimate jobs at riskand reducing funds to support new content. It can fund other forms of criminality, as well as expose end users to the risks of malware and identity theft.
“During his police interview, Adal gave a full and frank admission that he had run a panel providing illegal streams to customers for almost four years. Our investigation found that he had received a significantnumber of payments related to IPTV.
“Enabling access to premium content without a subscription is illegal and, unfortunately for Adal, he will now rightly have to face the consequence of having a criminal record.”
The case was referred to police in June 2022 by Sky. A subsequent investigation found that a PayPal accountowned by Adal received a total of £247,552 in payments related to IPTV between December 2017 and October 2022.
Officers arrested Adal and carried out a search warrant at his home on February 24, 2023.
They seized his mobile phone and a laptop, which Adal confirmed that he used to access the panel for his stream, and shut down the service.
Adal admitted during his police interview that he had been running a panel that provided illegal streams since 2017 and that he operated Mighty Plex, Mighty TV and Mighty Flex.
