KUALA LUMPUR: A collaborative effort between the police and Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad saw an illegal streaming ring busted.
Federal Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director Comm Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf said following information on the illegal streaming, the police together with Astro and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) collaborated in identifying the location of the server farm used.
“Via this collaboration, an operation was conducted on March 14 in three areas in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur,” he said at the department headquarters here.
The first saw a raid in Sungai Long where a suspected operations hub was shut down. The hub was believed to have been used to control and monitor the server farm’s “on and off” timings for the illegal streaming services.
Two more raids were conducted on Jalan Kovil Hilir in Sentul and Taman Genting Setapak in Kuala Lumpur where police found suspected server farms that would pirate Astro and other international channels content to those using the crime syndicate services.
“As a result of this operation two local suspects, a man and a woman, were arrested. The 53 and 57-year-old suspects were believed to have been the main masterminds behind this operation,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday (March 27)
Losses suffered by Astro was “estimated to be in the millions”, he added.
“We advise the public to not be involved in illegal streaming as it is an offence under Malaysian law,” he said.
