Nov. 20 (UPI) — Bangladeshi brothers charged with running an illegal online streaming service that earned them millions of dollars from subscriber fees.
Noor Nabi Chowdhury, 56, of Cheektowaga, N.Y., and Mohammad Rahman, 36, of Dhaka, Bangladesh, were indicted by a New York federal grand jury Nov. 15 on charges stemming from their operation of 247TVStream.
Chowdhury was arrested Tuesday while Rahman remains at large, the Justice Department said in a statement.
According to the four-count indictment, from May 2017 to this month, the brothers operated the online subscription-based online service, which permitted users to stream copyrighted content — such as sports programming and television shows — without authorization from the rights holders.
Prosecutors allege that the two men, along with other co-conspirators, illegally obtained the copyrighted content from dozens of companies that they permitted subscribers to view via the Internet for a monthly fee of $10.
The brothers are alleged to have netted more than $7 million in subscriber fees while harming the companies they stole the content from to a tune of more than $100 million, prosecutors said.
The indictment also states they stole the identity of a person identified in the court document as “Victim #5” to open accounts with online payment companies, financial institutions and other entities as part of a scheme to conceal their unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content.
As part of the law enforcement action, Homeland Security Investigations on Tuesday executed an order to seize website domains used by the brothers to operate 247TVStream. British authorities also seized servers hosting some of the service’s infrastructure, prosecutors said.
“Individuals, including subscribers, visiting those sites now will see a message indicating that the site has been seized by the federal government,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
The most serious offense they face is conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which, if convicted, could see each brother serving up to 20 years in prison.