Paramilitary mafia groups expand power in Brazil with pirated TV service

By Maria Angelica Troncoso

Rio de Janeiro, Jun 28 (EFE).- Some 33 million people consume television by pirated subscription in Brazil, an illegal service that results in exorbitant losses to legitimate businesses in the country and in which Rio de Janeiro’s so-called “militias” are heavily involved.

The number of Internet users who receive the pirated services is more than twice the number who pay for it from legal firms, and thus the prohibited practice results in some 15.5 billion reais (about $3.1 billion) in losses each year, of which 12.9 percent correspond to taxes the country is not collecting.

The service – known in Brazil as “Gatonet,” a name coming from an expression meaning “to con someone” – is provided to users in different ways.

Among the most used methods for getting the illicit TV service are the boxes – known as TV Box – that transform a regular television set into an “intelligent” or “smart TV” making it into a new source of profit for Brazilian organized crime.

According to Brazilian customs authorities, the illegal use of this equipment occurs all over the country.

Nevertheless, Rio de Janeiro stands out since it is there that a little more than a million illegal TV Box devices have been seized by authorities since last year, representing losses of more than 470 million reais (about $94 million) to organized crime. In all Brazil, about 1.4 million such devices have been seized.

In Rio, the “militias,” as the paramilitary mafia groups are known – and which dominate in about 58 percent of the city’s urban zone – control essential services such as light, gas, water and transportation in many, if not all, of the city’s “favelas” or shantytowns.

Subscription Internet, TV and film services are also under the mafias’ control.

Anyone wanting to have one of these services in the slums will have to acquire them from the criminal groups, most of them made up of police – active-duty, retired or fired officers – since they do not allow favela residents to get the services legitimately or through rival groups. Those who do try to circumvent the mafias are putting their lives and those of their families at risk.

EFE determined that just for installing the illicit subscriber TV and film services, a resident of the Mangaratiba favela must pay the militias 90 reais (about $18) and another 60 reais ($12) per month, a rather costly proposition for most residents of the poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

To that, one must add the cost of the Internet, also provided illegally, which is about 50 reais ($10) per month.

But the “Gatonet” has been expending in recent years beyond the favelas and is now being offered in middle class districts of Rio, where the service is generally sold door to door. With the advantages provided by getting a direct connection to the Internet via illicit devices, the service has expanded even more.

According to a study carried out in March 2021 and released by the Brazilian Association of Television by Subscription (ABTA), 27.2 percent of Internet users over age 16 – or 33 million people – consume pirated subscription TV and film services, while just 14.9 million Brazilians bought these services legally in 2020.

The reason for this lies in the cost of the illegal services, which – depending on how one purchases such services – comes to just 10 percent of legally available services.

Various officials consulted by EFE said that the majority of the illegal devices are smuggled into the country and adapted for illegal use to allow connecting them to TV channels and film platforms that offer protected intellectual property, including HBO, Amazon and Netflix.

“One hundred percent of these devices come from Asia” via sea and land shipment, Paulo Aurelio Pereira da Silva, the coordinator of the National Telecommunications Agency’s Action Plan to Combat Piracy, said, adding “We’re fighting that,”

The penalties for the crime range from blocking a person’s Internet signal to fines and seizing their connection devices, and also include up to four years in prison.

The situation concerns Brazilian authorities because studies have shown that the equipment being used to break up TV by subscription and film platform signals can illegally capture information about users.

“We have very robust reports that show that they can also serve to attack the Web and even crash government Web sites,” the Anatel expert said.