Five men who made millions on illegal streaming 'sticks' jailed for up to 11 years each

Five men who were involved in selling illegal IPTV 'sticks' which helped fans stream the Premier League have been jailed for up to 11 years each.

Fans attempting to save money by streaming football games through illegal services has become more and more popular in recent years.

In order to watch every Premier League game that on tv, supporters need to pay for Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime Video.

Authorities have attempted to cut down on the practice, with a crackdown on those who provide the service leading to 1,000 homes being visited by police earlier in the year.

Now five men have been involved in the biggest crackdown of the services and now face around 30 years behind bars between them.

The group aged between 30 and 46 were sentenced on Tuesday at Chesterfield Crown Court for a number of different offences for selling the sticks.

Between Mark Gould, 36, Steven Gordon, 46, Peter Jolley, 41, Christopher Felvus, 36, William Brown, 33, and Zak Smith, 30, they are said to have generated around £7 million.

They used three different organisations to sell the streaming services and make their money between 2016 and 2021, with Judge Martin Hurst handing down the sentences.

TV fraud gang jailed for illegally streaming Premier League football games https://t.co/gxlbnoj8cO pic.twitter.com/mMgNn8362e

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) May 30, 2023

Judge Hurst mentioned that the men sold their services at £10 a month, with fans normally having to spend around nine times that to buy legal services.

The biggest service that the men were involved in was called Flawless 1 and is said to have had around 50,000 customers earning around £4.6 million in just two years.

Between them they also launched two more streaming services that weren't as successful but still earned them a lot of money.

Gould got the largest of the sentences, earning himself 11 years behind bars, two counts of conspiracy to defraud and contempt of court.

Gordon, Jolley, Felvus and Brown all got between three years and 11 months and five years and nine months on their sentences.