These men were all jailed for running dodgy streaming operations and providing illegal access to paid-for TV content. Their actions cost legitimate services millions of pounds by allowing their customers to access ‘premium’ subscription TV without paying for it.
A police officer found himself on the wrong side of the law – and his career in tatters – after he was found to be selling illegal devices which bypassed content that typically required a monthly subscription. A school headteacher was also found to have made a £240,00 profit from ripping off the likes of Sky TV and BT.
Another fraudster went on the run after being convicted of selling pirate boxes that gave illegal access to Sky TV, BT Sports, and Virgin. However, he was arrested in Cyprus and brought back to the UK to serve his sentence. You can read more about the individual cases below.
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Kieron Sharp, CEO at the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), said: “Illegal streaming isn’t a victimless crime. It weakens the creative industries, puts consumers at risk of data theft and often funds other serious crimes.”
Paul Merrell
Paul Merrell
(Image: Birmingham Mail)
This school headteacher ran an illegal online streaming business which ripped off the likes of Sky TV and BT. Paul Merrell was estimated to have around 2,000 customers and made £240,000 in profit.
The 43-year-old operated the racket between January 2017 and January 2021, prior to becoming the headteacher of Elmfield Rudolf Steiner School in Stourbridge. Merrell, of Boldmere Road, Sutton Coldfield, admitted two offences under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act and was jailed for 12 months in February last year.
Daniel Aimson
Daniel Aimson
This man cost legitimate service providers more than £2 million when he sold illegal devices that bypassed paid-for TV content. Daniel Aimson was jailed for 12 months in June 2020 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud.
It followed a joint investigation by Greater Manchester Police and FACT, which was launched in 2017. Aimson, who was a serving GMP police officer at the time, had been involved in managing a company that produced Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) devices that allowed access to content like sport and films that typically required a monthly subscription.
The company also sold streaming services, which allowed anything between 48 hours to six months access to paid-for content, without the need for a physical IPTV device. Aimson was arrested at his home address in September 2017 and a number of items were recovered implicating him in the fraud. He was immediately suspended from his role with the police.
Michael Hornung
Michael Hornung
This fraudster went on the run after being convicted of selling pirate boxes giving illegal access to Sky TV, BT Sports and Virgin. Michael Hornung was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison in June 2022 for selling unauthorised decoders, selling articles for use in fraud and advertising unauthorised decoders for sale.
However he failed to show up for sentencing, with Minshull Street Crown Court hearing he had fled to Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, where the UK had no extradition treaty. However, on June 2 last year, Hornung was arrested in Cyprus following an operation by the National Crime Agency and FACT and agreed to be extradited to the UK to serve his sentence.
Hornung, formerly of Hyde, Greater Manchester, was estimated to to have sold around 2,700 set top boxes between January 2014 and January 2017. He supplied equipment that allowed customers to access ‘premium’ subscription TV, including pay-per-view events such as boxing, without paying for it, through an account called ‘NoHatsNoTrainers’ which advertised the devices for sale on a website called CS-world.
Jonathan Edge
This man ended up behind bars after he loaded illicit streaming services onto Fire Sticks. Jonathan Edge from Liverpool was jailed for three years and four months in November 2024 after he pleaded guilty to three offences under the Fraud Act.
He relied on advertising through Facebook posts and word-of-mouth recommendations to run his illegal services. His own use of the unauthorised service was treated as a distinct crime in itself as he ignored multiple warnings to stop the illicit activity.
Amir Butt and Ammar Hussain
Two brothers from Ilford were sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison for operating an illegal streaming service which offered subscriptions to premium television content, including Sky. Amir Butt was sentenced to seven years in prison in September 2023, while his younger sibling, Ammar Hussain, was jailed for four in August 2024.
Both were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud over a seven-year period from August 2012 to March 2019. The pair traded under the names, Tech & Sat Ltd. Techsat and Tech + Sat and sold annual subscriptions, which provided access to a range of sports and entertainment content, priced at £200 each. They were believed to have thousands of customers, generating hundreds of thousands of pounds in revenue and depriving legitimate tv providers in excess of £1 million.
Sunny Kumar Kanda
This Halifax man sold modified TV Fire Sticks that infringed copyright laws. The devices he sold between 2020 and 2022 provided unauthorised access to Sky, BT Sport, Disney+ and Netflix, and cheated legitimate providers out of more than £108,000.
In August 2024, Kanda pleaded guilty to three charges in violation of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Fraud Act 2006 in relation to supplying and distributing the TV Fire Sticks and concealing bank transfers linked to criminal activity. He was sentenced to two years behind bars at York Crown Court on January 3 this year.