A Europe-wide enforcement operation uncovered a major shift to cryptocurrency as the primary payment method for illegal streaming services, leading to dozens of new investigations.
In a significant crackdown on digital piracy, a coordinated European enforcement effort has traced over €47 million (approximately $55 million) in cryptocurrency flowing through accounts tied to illegal streaming operations. The operation, one of the largest of its kind, highlights how illicit IPTV services have increasingly adopted crypto to process payments.
The five-day "Intellectual Property Crime Cyber-Patrol Week" was coordinated by Europol in mid-November, with support from the EU Intellectual Property Office and Spain’s National Police. Investigators gathered in Alicante, using advanced open-source intelligence tools to analyze sites suspected of facilitating widespread illegal content distribution.
Piracy Networks Embrace Crypto to Evade Detection
The operation identified 69 websites with a combined estimated annual traffic of nearly 12 million visitors. A key finding was the clear industry-wide pivot to digital assets. "Investigators observed that many operators no longer rely on traditional payment providers, instead adopting cryptocurrency as their primary channel," Europol reported.
To combat this, investigators employed a direct tactic: they used cryptocurrency to purchase services from the suspected platforms. This allowed them to trace the transactions, identify the wallet operators, and report them to exchanges and forensic firms for disruption. As a result, 25 illicit IPTV services were referred for shutdown, and 44 more targets were placed under further investigation.
A Coordinated Cross-Border Strategy
The operation served as a forum for international collaboration, with more than 15 countries and private-sector organizations contributing tools, intelligence, and expertise. The effort is part of the EU's broader strategy to combine technological innovation with cross-border cooperation to tackle increasingly sophisticated digital crime networks.
This crackdown on piracy financing follows another recent European enforcement action. Last month, authorities shut down over 1,400 fraudulent online trading platforms that were targeting retail investors with promises of high returns from forex, crypto, and stock trading.