Five men have been sentenced to a total of more than 30 years in prison after the Premier League brought about a historic private prosecution to clamp down on piracy and the illegal streaming of Premier League matches.
The individuals involved, aged between 30 and 46, operated one of the UK’s largest illicit streaming services and made millions of pounds selling TV sticks, which allowed customers to access streams illegally to watch most, if not all, of the most valuable sporting events in the world.
They were sentenced, in respect of various charges at Chesterfield Crown Court on Tuesday, including conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and contempt of court.
Between them, Mark Gould, 36, Steven Gordon, 46, Peter Jolley, 41, Christopher Felvus, 36, William Brown, 33, and Zak Smith, 30, generated in excess of £7million between 2016 and 2021 through three private streaming organisations which offered illegal access to content including live Premier League matches.
Gould, was sentenced to 11 years while Gordon, Jolley, Felvus and Brown all received sentences ranging from three to six years.
Five men have been sentenced after the Premier League brought a historic private prosecution to clamp down on illegal piracy and the streaming of matches
The individuals operated one of the UK’s largest illicit streaming services and made millions of pounds selling TV sticks
Not all games are televised in the UK and some fans seek alternative illegal sources
Smith, who acted as a mole selling information obtained from his employment at an online monitoring and enforcement agency, is still at large and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.
Passing sentence, Judge Martin Hurst outlined how the group charged £10 per month for the service. For context, a similar subscription with Sky Sports and BT Sports – the current Premier League rights holders in the UK – would cost in the range of £60-£80 per month.
Flawless 1, which operated between 2016 and 2018, was at the time the largest illegal IPTV service in the UK, providing over 300 channels with 24/7 customer service for £10 per month. It was estimated to have had 50,000 customers including a network of reseller businesses (who provided the services for £6 per month) and made £4.6m in just under two years, of which Gould took in excess of £1.7m.
In 2018, a breakaway service known as ‘Optimal’ was launched by Gordon and Jolley after a pay dispute between Gordon and Gould however it ultimately failed due to Gould and Brown sabotaging the service by infecting its servers with malware.
Flawless 2 also known as ‘Shared VPS’, was subsequently launched by Gould, Felvus and Brown after the initial arrest of Gould and made £2.6m between May 2018 and July 2021.
The group charged customers £10 per month for the service while a similar subscription with Sky Sports and BT Sports in the UK would cost in the range of £60-80 a month
Significant steps were taken by the trio to conceal the service, with Brown employed to perform a range of roles including helping Flawless avoid detection by the authorities, hacking broadcasters and their legitimate subscribers, alongside stealing content from rival illegal services.
Shared VPS was uncovered after Birmingham Trading Standards arrested one of the major Flawless resellers, following a Premier League & FACT investigation.
Evidence was identified of payments being made to a PayPal account in the name of Shared-VPS, before they moved to bitcoin. That account was linked to Gould as investigations, amongst other things, showed the account being used to order take-away food and electrical goods to Gould’s home address.
The investigation and prosecution was taken by the Premier League and supported by the intellectual private property organisation FACT and Hammersmith and Fulham Trading Standards, who led a series of enforcement raids and arrests at eight addresses across the country in 2018.
Evidence seized from Felvus’ computers also established that he was in possession of indecent child imagery, which led to a separate prosecution.
In January 2021, he pleaded guilty to three charges of possession of an indecent photograph of a child and to committing 13 acts of voyeurism for which he received a custodial sentence and was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.
The Premier League are expected to release a statement on Tuesday.
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