On Tuesday 23 May 2023, Dutch fiscal police (FIOD ) carried out a large-scale raid that appears to have taken down one of Europe’s largest IPTV operations, causing many hundreds of thousands of people to loose access to their internet TV services.

According to Europol, the operation is said to be servicing more than a million users.

The raids were carried out in a business premises at the Ravelijncenter in Den Helder and in a house in Den Helder. In addition business premises and homes were searched in Amsterdam, Enschede and The Hague. Administration, bank accounts, five cars, computer equipment and large amounts of cash have been seized, the FIOD said.

A total of four arrests have been made in Den Helder and Almere

The name of the IPTV operation is not mentioned by the authorities but it appears to be massive. Anti-piracy group BREIN reports that TVs in hundreds of thousands of homes went dark due to the raids. Europol, which also assisted in the operation, mentions that the service had over a million users across Europe.

The service, which charged a monthly subscription fee of roughly 10 euros, carried more than 10,000 TV channels. It also offered access to 15,000 on-demand movies and TV series from popular services such as Disney+ and Netflix, causing substantial damages.

“This is the largest criminal investigation by the Dutch fiscal police FIOD and the Dutch prosecution into digital piracy in the Netherlands ever,” says BREIN director Tim Kuik commenting on the news.