One day after the World Cup wrapped up with a victory for Spain, the Department of Justice announced that over the course of the tournament it seized more than 1,000 domains that illegally streamed games.
The domains were disabled in three successive operations led by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. In June, HSI announced it had seized nearly 400 domains pirating the matches. At the time, federal officials said the servers and domains involved were targeted in Bulgaria and Peru, both hubs for illegal streaming operators.
The effort is about more than intellectual property protection, federal officials said, citing the “risk to American consumers from the malicious software embedded in many illicit streaming services.”
“Streaming content from illicit websites opens your devices to unknown risks. Criminals operating these unauthorized platforms are already willing to break the law when they stream copyrighted World Cup games, they might also be planning to inject malware or steal your payment information,” Matthew Millhollin, deputy executive associate director of HSI, said in a statement.
The international arm of the investigation led to the takedown of hundreds of additional sites across Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Colombia, the press release said. Earlier this month, Colombian authorities arrested four suspected members of the cyber gang Los Ciberinfiltrados.
Members of the group have allegedly “illegally accessed telecommunication systems and sold pirated streaming content,” including World Cup matches, since 2024. The hackers use fraudulent credentials, VPNs, intercepted security codes and other tactics to facilitate the illegal streaming, the DOJ press release said.
Fans usually access illegal sports streams through Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), feeding a business that law enforcement has said can earn operators millions of dollars in profits.
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