Redazione RHC : 8 September 2025 14:16
Egyptian authorities and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) say they have shut down Streameast, the largest illegal sports streaming network in the world, and arrested two of the platform’s alleged operators.
Streameast, active since 2018, is a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers access to HD content from licensed broadcasters.
According to ACE, Streameast operates 80 domains that collectively generate 136 million monthly visits. The platform attracted 1.6 billion visits last year, primarily from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Germany.
The pirate platform offers illegal streams of soccer leagues including the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1, Portuguese Primeira Liga, and American MLS.
Streameast also broadcast national football team matches from the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA European Championship, and the UEFA Nations League, as well as the Copa America, and international club tournaments such as the Champions League and Europa League.
Streameast also offered viewers major American sports, including the NFL (American football), NBA (basketball), NHL (hockey), and MLB (baseball), as well as PPV broadcasts of boxing, MMA, and various motorsports events from around the world (such as Formula 1 and MotoGP).
First signs of problems with the pirate streaming site They appeared last week, when Reddit users began reporting problems accessing the site and streams and chats failing to load. Shortly afterward, ACE officials stated that the platform’s operations had been shut down by Egyptian law enforcement.
“The shutdown of Streameast is a huge victory for everyone who invests in and relies on the live sports ecosystem,” ACE said. “This criminal operation has drained sports revenues at every level and put fans around the world at risk.”
According to the New York Times, two people have been arrested in Giza Governorate, Egypt. Police confiscated their laptops, smartphones, cash, and several credit cards.
Investigators have reportedly linked the streaming service to a shell company in the United Arab Emirates, which was allegedly used since 2010 to launder $6.2 million in advertising revenue and $200,000 in cryptocurrency.
Eighty domains formerly owned by Streameast now redirect visitors to ACE’s “Watch Legally” site, which contains links to legal platforms.
However, according to Torrent Freak, the operation by law enforcement and ACE had no impact on the original Streameast, But it eliminated a network of 80 clone domains that only copied the Streameast “brand.” At the same time, the clones generated even more pirate traffic than the original.
Representatives of the pirate service stated that they had no connection to these fake sites and also noted: “We’re not even Egyptian.”
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