Two Indian-origin men in the UK have been jailed for enabling hundreds of people to tune in to paid-for cable TV channels for free.
reports Manish Javahar and Bobby Bhairon appeared at Leicester Crown Court on Tuesday to plead guilty to their involvement in a multi-million pound fraud which allowed people to tune into Virgin channels without paying the usual subscription fee.
The Leicester Crown Court sentences Manish Javahar to 21 months in jail while Bobby Bhairon was handed a 19-month sentence which has been suspended for two years.
Their sentencing follows the conviction of eight others who were involved in this scam. The man who masterminded the scam, Mahesh Tailor, was jailed for six years in August, 2016, the states.
Tailor was the director and owner of Tailor Made Circuits, who found a method of bypassing the encryption system used to protect cable channels supplied by Virgin Media.
The court was told that he imported set-top boxes from far-east and sold them across the country for 80 pounds, using a network of people to assist him.
"This was a lengthy and complex investigation which saw officers being deployed at various locations across the country to take the network down and render the boxes useless. When we raided Tailor's home, we found 250,000 pounds in cash in various rooms. There were similar amounts held in his business bank accounts," Detective Constable Amrat Bhagwan of Leicestershire Police, who investigated the case, .
"The boxes were imported from the Far East and documentation showed that Tailor claimed that they were satellite receivers and even paid importation tax on them. He did everything in his power to stop himself appearing on the radar," he said.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "Virgin Media has a zero tolerance approach to piracy and we thank Leicestershire Police for continuing to crack down on this criminal activity. Set-top box piracy is not a victimless crime.
