Ukrainian Cyber Police Shut Down Movie Streaming Websites

The Ukrainian cyber police unit closed down FS Group, a company that ran several movie-streaming websites in Ukraine, offering free, pirated movies to over one million users. FS Group had operated since 2011 and included the following websites – FS.TO, BRB.TO, FS.UA, and CXZ.TO.

The police held searches in offices, data centers, and homes of the accomplices and seized related technical equipment. Nineteen people were identified as involved in setting up, administering and supporting the web resources. Ukrainian investigators also identified foreign and local companies that were engaged in laundering the money earned from the illegal websites.

Criminal proceedings against FS Group were launched after the Motion Picture Association of America and a number of Ukrainian companies and rights holders filed complaints about the infringement of their copyright and related rights. The value of the damage done to the rights holders is estimated at over EUR 170,000 (USD 182,000).

The cyber police unit keeps monitoring the Internet to track down other resources that the pirates could possibly use to resume their work.

Prepared by: Dina Petošević and Olga Goncharova

For more information, please contact ukraine@petosevic.com.

Source: Ukrainian National Police, Kiev-based Segodnya newspaper