On August 27, City of London Police published a press release headlined: “Man in his 60s jailed for 6.5 years after making over £980,000 through illegal streaming.”
In the days that followed, this exact framing was repeated throughout many online news articles.
The release came with statements from the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the Premier League, Sky and BBC Studios. Additionally, FACT published the same release on its own website the next day.
City of London Police said that a 68-year-old from Chorley was “found guilty of conspiracy to defraud” at Preston Crown Court. His business ran on 80 servers, sold subscriptions to customers worldwide, particularly British expats, and generated £980,812 “over a three-year period.”
As is often the case with UK enforcement efforts, details are scarce. The official press releases didn’t mention the pirate service at stake, nor did they say anything about when these offenses took place, or what the reasoning of the court was.
Some news reports filled in these blanks themselves. The Mirror, for example, used the following headline: “Massive streaming crackdown blocks more UK homes from watching Sky for free.”
The Mirror reported that a “major closure has taken place after a man behind a popular illegal streaming service was recently arrested.” The server seizure left customers “with nothing more than blank screens,” it added, suggesting that this was a recent action.
IBC reported that all 80 servers “have now been seized,” and a French site wrote that British justice had “just dismantled” the operation. Meanwhile, BleepingComputer suggested the seized servers “may lead to the identification of users” who could face fines.
After some digging, we can now confirm that this case isn’t recent at all. In fact, the raid on Ibrahim’s operation dates back to 2016, more than a decade ago.
Pleaded Guilty
The release got the three-year period right, but the rest of the picture looks different.
After several emails and a check of our press credentials, Preston Crown Court confirmed that Ibrahim pleaded guilty to two counts. For the indictment, the court referred us to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which also named the service and answered follow-up questions, partly on background.
According to the CPS, Ibrahim pleaded guilty five days into his trial.
A guilty plea sounds different than being “found guilty”. When we asked the City of London Police about the wording in its press release, it said: “The jury did find him guilty but he plead guilty before. The terminology is fine to use for either.”
When a defendant changes his plea after the jury has been sworn in, the jury is typically asked to return a formal guilty verdict. The conviction rests on the plea.
Which Three Years?
The indictment also fills in the dates, revealing that this case is far from new. All three counts run from June 1, 2013 to August 10, 2016.
That end date is the day of a raid. On August 10, 2016, PIPCU searched a business and three homes in Chorley and arrested three men, aged 36, 40 and 58, on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Ibrahim was 58 at the time. The 2026 release does not mention this raid.
TorrentFreak reported on the raid the next day. At the time, sources already pointed to a Chorley company selling IPTV packages to expats.
The CPS now confirms that the previously unnamed service was “initially known as ‘Ex Pat TV’ and latterly ‘My TV Abroad’.” This rebrand happened before the raid.
With those names, TorrentFreak was able to locate the service’s old website. An archived copy of mytvabroad.com from July 15, 2016, less than four weeks before the raid, carries a banner announcing the switch: “BIG RE-BRAND! Ex-Pat TV is now My TV Abroad.”
The site promised “live UK channels, anywhere in the world” from £19 per month, with no VPN required. Its footer credits a web designer in Chorley.
That means FACT’s identification of the service, which it highlighted in the release, took place more than a decade ago. That wasn’t mentioned either. There’s more new information too.
From Three Defendants to One
The press release mentions just one defendant, but the indictment names three. In addition to Milan Ibrahim, it lists two other men, who were also charged with conspiracy to defraud copyright holders, through live TV streams, movie streams and satellite decoders supplied to commercial premises.
Milan Ibrahim pleaded guilty to the first two counts but the other two men were not convicted. The Crown did not proceed against either of them. TorrentFreak understands that Milan Ibrahim was seen as the main instigator, and that the case against the other two was resolved as part of his plea. The exact arrangement hasn’t been confirmed.
None of the new information changes the outcome. Ibrahim is serving six and a half years and, according to the police, faces Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings to recover the £980,812. That was all clear from the press release.
For proper news reporting, however, context is key. That the pirate IPTV service, Ex Pat TV or My TV Abroad, was raided a decade ago, and that the sentence followed a guilty plea, are not trivial details. The same is true for the co-defendants, who were part of the same indictment.
Why the police and FACT left these details out is unknown.
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A copy of the revised indictment in R v Ibrahim and others (Preston Crown Court, T20237377) is available here (pdf). The names of the two co-defendants, who were not convicted, have been redacted.
