Legal notices have been served to 13 operators of illegal TV streaming services known as 'dodgy boxes'.
The notices were issued during an operation over two weeks in December to operators across Ireland instructing them to immediately stop their illicit streaming activities or otherwise risk facing the consequences, including criminal prosecution.
The 13 legal notices were served across Dublin, Cork, Donegal, Offaly, Limerick, Louth, Clare, Westmeath and Laois.
They were delivered in person, by post and through email and have resulted in services being shut down, deleted social media profiles, subscriptions being terminated and paid settlements agreed.
The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) has been working with broadcasters and law enforcement on this latest clampdown on illegal Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) providers.
This is the fourth wave of enforcement action to date, since March 2023, and has resulted in the closure of almost 70 illegal services across the country.
"The action is having an impact on the piracy landscape in Ireland, with more operators being identified than ever before, with more illegal services being disrupted impacting tens of thousands of end-users who would have watched the streams," FACT said.
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According to the organisation, many consumers are unaware that piracy networks are often linked to organised crime, with their profits potentially funding other illegal activities.
FACT is also warning that illegal streams carry serious risks of opening consumers up to a range of harms including having their devices infected with malware and viruses, to being defrauded or having personal data stolen.
"Together with our partners we will continue to identify and take action against Illegal IPTV service providers," FACT chairman Kieron Sharp said.
"They are breaking the law, making criminal profits and putting consumers at real risk of malware, data loss and identity theft."
"We want to protect consumers from these risks and operations such as this ensure the message goes out. It is not scaremongering, these are real criminal actions which consumers and their families are exposed to," Mr Sharp said.
FACT said that its investigations and operations will continue in 2025.
50 'dodgy box' operations shut down in last year
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Mr Sharp said that over 50 operations involving the sale of 'dodgy boxes' had been shut down in the Republic of Ireland in the last year.
"We’ve had good success in closing them down, because basically they are ripping off content from Sky and others, and then selling it to people, who are also ripping it off others. It’s important that these operations are shut down at an early stage," he said.
Mr Sharp said that he didn’t buy the excuse of consumers not seeing their actions as a crime.
"I don’t really get it myself, I think that’s just an excuse. There’s been paid TV now for 25 years or more, people know that they have to pay for it," he said.
"If they’re not paying for it, they’re giving the money to somebody else. It clearly must be a crime," he added.
Mr Sharp explained that it was a lucrative, but illegal, practice.
"For some of those who have developed big businesses, one of those I just spoke about had over €900,000 in criminal profits. It can be very lucrative and there’s often organised crime involved because they can create a lot of criminal money in their actions," he said.
"Fortunately, the majority of people that we do approach, they do comply with the instructions," he added.
Mr Sharp said that for the moment, the focus remained on the providers rather than the consumers.
"Our interest is on the providers because they create the network of people to use the stolen content. We can’t really say that consumers will not get swept up in these operations in the future, but our focus is certainly on the providers," he said.
