51-year-old George Bridi from the Isle of Wight has been extradited to the United States over charges relating to TV and movie piracy.
It has been confirmed by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, that Bridi was extradited from Cyprus to the US on Tuesday, appearing before the federal court in Manhattan yesterday (Wednesday).
It was in August last year that Bridi was arrested on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus over allegations of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, wire fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. The charges relate to an international piracy ring called Sparks, which allegedly illegally distributed movies and TV shows across the world via the internet.
It’s said that the alleged piracy caused tens of millions of dollars worth of losses to film production studios.
Attorney Audrey Strauss has said:
“As alleged, George Bridi was a member of an international video piracy ring that circumvented copyright protections on nearly every movie released by major production studios, as well as television shows, and distributed them worldwide on the Internet. Thanks to the assistance of our law enforcement partners, the piracy ring has been busted and Bridi is now in U.S. custody.”
Bridi has pleaded not guilty to all 3 charges against him and will re-appear in court at a later date. He faces up to 30 years in prison.
Co-defendant Jonatan Correa previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and was sentenced in May to 3 years and 3 months of supervised release, with the first 3 months to be served in community confinement. Another co-defendant, Umar Ahmad, a citizen of Norway, remains at large.
The investigation has involved law enforcement agencies from Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Be nice if international police forces could get together to stop drug and people trafficking like this.
Good thieving scum. A few years ago a mate lost his job at an island games company because their Bafta nominated game was stolen so many times they never got their development costs back. If you want to know why mobile games have so many adverts, it’s because of people like this. Stealing films and games because they have no talent to make their own.
Perhaps these companies should take a long hard look at their own in-house security, you would not leave a Bank door open at the end of the day, so how do these companies loose out through the world of computers.
Don’t need to hack a film company to steal their films.But it does help. If I were to accidentally leave my wallet on the bus does not give the right for someone to steal any cash or cards in it. But yes I would have to take some responsibility.
If he’s guilty then, obviously, he should be punished but ‘up to 30 years in prison’ seems excessive. That falls into the realms of the punishment for Second Degree Murder in some States.
Some background to the story would have been useful i.e. was he a major player, downloading and distributing thousands of films etc, or is he just a small-time player (which doesn’t let him off but which would give some context to the story and the potential sentence)?
Isn’t it strange how this extradition treaty works. The Americans always get who ever they want. Anne Sacoolas seems to get away with the near murder of Harry Dunn. Whole thing is a bit one sided. Still, they haven’t got Julian Assange or Prince Andrew, yet.
Well said, brilliant !
30 years !!! I’m undecided if this lengthy sentence is because it’s the US, or if it’s because he hit them in the pocket ? Whilst Peodophiles are left wondering free here. An insult to vulnerable victims of the worst kind of crimes. No money to be made from them though is there. Actually offended.