Four arrested for TV signal piracy

Hyderabad, June 29 (IANS) Hyderabad police Sunday arrested four people for piracy of cable TV signals.

Acting on a complaint of Maa Television Network, a team of Cyber Crime wing conducted a raid in Thirumalgery in Secunderabad and arrested the four linked to a company called Pearl Technology.

Sumit Ahuja, the CEO of the company, is absconding and the police have seized his two bank accounts.

The arrested include an engineer, a tele caller and a web designer, said police.

The accused were illegally tapping the cable TV signal and converting it into Internet signal and streaming to Jadoo TV, a US-based company.

By purchasing Jadoo TV set top box and without any monthly subscription fee, the customers could view about 115 channels. This was causing losses to paid channels.

Each Jadoo TV box was priced between $250 and $300. These boxes are being used by the customers in the US, Australia, Singapore and 15 other countries.

So far two lakh such boxes had been sold in these countries. The Jadoo TV boxes and other equipment required for converting the video signal into Internet signal were imported from China.

Hyderabad police believe this Signal Piracy has been going on in India for six to seven years. The accused were changing the set up to different cities to fool the authorities.