ACE and MPA help shut down Taiwan’s largest pirate movie and TV show site *TorrentFreak

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Police in Taiwan have shut down 8maple.ru, the country’s largest piracy movie and TV show website. The action followed an investigation by ACE, MPA, and the Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA. Two men in their 30s, both graduates of National Taiwan Northern University, were arrested and millions in cash and luxury property seized.

While English-language “pirate” sites grab most of the mainstream headlines, anti-piracy groups have international platforms firmly on their radars. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of such sites in Asia, but after coordinated police action, one of the largest has now gone down.

Following an investigation by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the Asia-Pacific Division of the Motion Picture Association (MPA-APC), the Japan-based Overseas Content Distribution Association (CODA), local television network Sanli TV, and police in Taiwan have now shut down 8maple.ru, The most popular pirate movie and TV show sites in the country.

According to similar site stats, 8maple attracts up to 35 million visits per month, making it not only the most visited platform of its kind in the region but also the 32nd most visited site in Taiwan, period.

According to police sources, the Criminal Investigation Bureau jointly with the Specialized Communications Investigation Corps swooped in to arrest 33-year-old Chen Su and 32-year-old Chuang Su. March 31, 2020. Both are graduates of the Department of Science and Engineering at National Northern University and are said to have extensive programming skills.

Authorities say the couple launched 8maple in 2014, setting up a fake ad company before showing Hollywood movies as well as American, Taiwanese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean offerings to the public for free. The site allegedly operates servers in several regions including the United States, Canada, Ukraine, France, and Romania.

8maple has generated income from advertising, with authorities currently estimating revenue at around NT$4,000,000 (US$133,000) per month.

Following the arrests, which have just been announced, police seized a number of electronic items including 25 computers, mobile phones, and data in cloud storage in France and Canada (OVH). As the image below shows, the site’s main .ru domain was among several seized including 8maple.com and eyny.tv.

The business appears to have been profitable for the two men. During a press briefing, authorities revealed that Chen and Chuang had each acquired luxury mansions for about NT$16 million (US$532,000) each, and both paid in cash. We caught her with an estimated NT$60,000,000 (US$1,900,000) discovered in the pair’s bank accounts.

The suspects have been arrested for copyright infringement offenses with a Taiwanese telecommunications investigation team estimating that 8maple has caused about NT$1 billion (US$33.2 million) in damages.

The anti-piracy groups involved in this work have not made any statement.