FIVE fraudsters who charged football fans £10-a-month for an illegal Premier League streaming service have been jailed.
Flawless TV raked in £7.2million from over 50,000 subscribers, offering matches not available on UK TV.
It undercut the likes of Sky Sports by bypassing a Uefa-imposed “blackout” that stops the broadcast of most 3pm kick-offs on Saturdays, which encourages fans to go to games.
Feeds were intercepted from broadcasters in Australia, the UK, US, Canada and Qatar and delivered a few seconds later to subscribers.
The crooked service – which also offered film and tv – ran between 2016 and 2021 and even had its own streaming app.
Flawless went to great lengths to avoid detection, even developing software to blur a unique code Sky adds to stop illegal streamers.
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When Premier League investigators raided the homes Flawless’s masterminds, they seized computer equipment and documents detailing the operation.
The group’s “prime mover” Mark Gould netted a staggering £1.7 million from the operation.
He was found in pyjamas surrounded by piles of Doritos packets and Domino’s pizza dips when he was cuffed at his riverside flat in Greenwich, South London.
Doug Love, a Trading-standards investigator who led the raid, said up to 30 set-top boxes running streams were found at the address.
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At Derby Crown Court, Gould, 36, was sentenced to 11 years in prison following a rare private prosecution by the Premier League.
Co-defendants Steven Gordon, Peter Jolley, William Brown and Christopher Felvus were all convicted of conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and contempt of court.
Felvus, 36, was also found guilty of voyeurism and possessing indecent images of children.
The four men were sentenced to between three and more than five years.
A sixth gang member, Zak Smith, failed to appear at court for sentencing and a warrant has been issued for his arrest, the Premier League said.
The Intellectual Property Office estimates nearly four million people in the UK used an illegal source to watch live sport last year.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
