Three Russians and a Turkmen scoured the previews to distribute the films on the Internet before their theatrical release.
A police operation aimed at dismantling a group of pirates which raged from June 2020 to the end of 2021 in cinemas has borne fruit. Three Russians and a Turkmen, including a father and son living in the Kremlin-Bicêtre (Val-de-Marne) and the son of a former diplomat, were placed in police custody for having recorded with smartphones films broadcast in cinema, explains The Parisian . Aged 17 to 46, they multiplied the previews in Île-de-France and Paris in order to distribute their copies even before the release of the films in dark rooms. A 22-year-old young woman, a student at a Parisian film school, would have made it easier for them.
According to the first estimates, the damage amounts to 8 million euros, while the cinema is in crisis, because of its long weeks due to the pandemic. The films, for some of the blockbusters, were downloadable from the Internet. The four crooks allegedly copied 120 in total. Dune , Batman , Spider-Man : No way home or North ferry count among the pirated productions.
Paid in bitcoins
According The Parisian, movies were stored in a secure cloud and buyers could access them with a code. The counterfeiters allegedly pocketed $200 per film and were paid in bitcoins. The crooks could have continued their traffic for a long time if the National Federation of French Cinemas and the Association for the Fight against Audiovisual Piracy had not discovered the fraud thanks to a traceability system present on the films which made it possible to spin the bandits. A preliminary investigation opened in October has already placed the suspects in police custody at the end of March. They had been released pending expertise on the computer equipment searched at their home or workplace.
Covid-19 and its restrictions have spread illegal movie viewing. In March 2020, a peak of 14.5 million visitors was recorded on illicit sites, i.e. nearly a third of Internet users, according to Médiamétrie. To discourage the increasing number of fraudsters, the Association for the Fight against Audiovisual Piracy is exhausted by closing about twenty sites a month.