Italian police dismantle Cinemagoal streaming piracy network in €300m crackdown

Italian law enforcement agency Guardia di Finanza has dismantled the Cinemagoal streaming piracy network, conducting more than 100 search and seizure operations across the country. The agency, which operates under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, announced the operation as part of a broader effort to restrict access to pirated content online.

Cinemagoal operated 24 hours a day by rebroadcasting access codes from legitimate subscriptions to fake accounts, allowing users to stream media from major platforms including Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify. According to the Guardia di Finanza, the app was designed to bypass platform security checks and did not require a connection to a user's IP address, a feature that complicated tracking efforts for investigators.

Subscriptions to the service ranged from 40 to 130 euros annually, with payments made via cryptocurrency or fake foreign bank accounts to obscure financial trails. The Guardia di Finanza initially estimated the financial harm caused by the network at approximately 300 million euros, though this figure remains an initial assessment rather than a final audit.

In addition to seizing servers containing decryption data and source code in collaboration with other European authorities, the agency is targeting the first 1,000 subscribers of the app. These users face fines ranging from 154 to 5,000 euros. It remains unclear whether Cinemagoal is permanently shut down or if the network may re-emerge following the seizure of its infrastructure.

The crackdown on Cinemagoal follows a series of similar enforcement actions globally. In 2022, the popular piracy site Popcorn Time was shut down, and the illegal sports streaming service Streameast was taken offline in September of the previous year, signalling a sustained regulatory push against digital piracy.