A cricket club in a middle-class village in the north of England on a freezing Saturday in January wouldn’t immediately stand out as a crime scene.
But the clue is in the parking lot that – despite the fact that the start of the season is still months away – is packed. Why? Because the owner is one of the estimated hundreds of thousands across the country who have obtained an illegally modified Fire Stick and that means they can show the local EFL football team’s away game on the big screen that afternoon.
Word has spread and the bar is doing a great trade. If you ask for those pints in a few lucrative hours, chances are they’ll tell you this is a victimless crime.
They wouldn’t be alone. Fire sticks are everywhere. For example, golf clubs in the UK have WhatsApp groups where members can place their orders.
For many who would never dream of committing robbery, breaking the law has become the norm. Sources, who for obvious reasons do not wish to be named, have lifted the lid on a crime wave sweeping the country.
Five men, including 36-year-old Mark Gould (pictured as detectives search his south London home in May 2018), each received up to 11 years in prison for distributing illegal streams
Bodycam footage also shows about 30 linked set-top boxes used for the illegal operation
A supplier tells Mail Sport that for £50 he can supply a stick that is guaranteed for a whole season. That £50 not only gets you access to all Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon matches, but also gets you every EFL match and National League match. Business is so good that he cheekily reveals that he employs a customer service representative who answers calls from users who are having problems.
There are a number of options for each sports channel, so if one is having problems or buffering, users simply switch to another. But it’s not just football. Some packages, including the £50 a year stick, offer everything you can think of.
Pay per view boxing also features along with Sky’s various movie channels. Incredibly, movies that were only released to theaters days earlier are also available, along with the news channels of every local branch in the United States.
While the sticks cost the customer £50, the supplier gets their hands on them for around £10, making a huge profit with very little work.
Indeed, the business may be so lucrative that Mail Sport was told about another salesman in the South East who is a full-time waste management company. In the past year he has had four Caribbean vacations and an extension to his house. No one thinks the council’s bonus scheme will pay for his new lavish lifestyle.
Payment is usually made by bank transfer and away from the prying eyes of the taxpayer. In some cases, vendors hand over the sticks ready to use, while in other cases, customers purchase their own sticks and receive a username and password for their chosen pirated streaming app.
The North East is seen as a supply incubator and those involved have no shortage of customers willing to part with the equivalent of a sub month subscription to Sky Sports for a full campaign with every game and more.
Some packages, including the £50 a year stick, offer everything you can think of
The Premier League is pouring resources into a crack squad to track down those responsible
Some may not shed a tear for the Premier League, which – as Mail Sport has described – is pouring resources into a stellar team of high-tech operatives to track down those responsible.
Some may feel that the ever-increasing cost of subscribing to the various broadcasters leaves them with little choice but to hunt down a stick.
But it’s hard not to feel sympathy for BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT, which provide exclusive commentary on matches not intended to be televised for a pittance.
Aside from the fact that this is theft, there are also serious concerns about some of the shady characters involved.
In the latest Premier League prosecution, a search of the laptop belonging to one of those involved, Christopher Felvus, found indecent images of children. Another hacked into customers’ accounts in an attempt to ensure that they would take the blame if the police ever came.
“This prosecution is yet another concrete example of the clear link between piracy and wider crime, a warning we repeatedly issue,” said Premier League lawyer Kevin Plumb.
Doug Love, the trading standards officer who was key to the raid, agrees. “It’s very tempting to think of it as a victimless crime if you’re a consumer watching an unreliable stream, but it’s not. If left unchecked, the broadcaster would fail and that would be the end of the sport as we know it,” he says. It sounds dramatic, but it isn’t.
“I don’t think it’s imaginative to say that society would be incredibly harmed if this crime were not challenged. Some sports are absolutely dependent on broadcasting deals and income for their exposure, which in turn increases participation.’
Mr Love is not wrong. The financial woes of those away from the Premier League’s riches are well documented. Indeed, the outfit those gamblers watched for free at the local cricket club would prefer if they logged into their own website and paid them for the privilege instead.
The Premier League believes they are winning the war. It looks like there are many more battles to be fought.