Leader Of Illegal Streaming Gang Sentenced To 11 years In Prison Now Faces 10 More Years

The ringleader of an illegal streaming gang that made more than £7.2million by broadcasting pirated Premier League games, films and TV series on ‘Flawless TV” was jailed for 11 years back in 2023.

Mark Gould, 39, now faces having an additional 10 years tacked onto his sentence if he fails to forfeit £2.35 million of his criminal profits by the end of August 2026.

This will result in a total prison term of 21 years for selling dodgy fire-sticks – people don’t even get that for murder these days!

In fairness, Gould and his crew, who are also currently serving jail sentences, literally made millions running their illegal streaming service; one of the largest ever prosecuted in the UK.

Flawless TV served over 50,000 customers with a staff of 30 employees and generated more than £7 million in untaxed income between 2016 and 2021.

Gould’s gang sold “pre-loaded” Firesticks for approximately £10 a month. These were standard Amazon Fire Sticks that had been modified with custom apps to bypass legal paywalls. I’m pretty sure I read recently that Amazon has stopped selling these, and replaced them with sticks that are “impossible” to hack.

The 5-year investigation was a private prosecution by the Premier League, supported by the FACT anti-piracy group and local trading standards.

When Gould was initially busted, he was sat in his pyjamas at his flat in Greenwich with 22–30 set-top boxes actively stealing feeds in a spare bedroom. Caught red-handed, basically.

Investigators bought subscriptions to Flawless TV to trace where the money was going, and eventually identified the digital footprints of the gang.

Despite the initial arrest, Gould and his associates launched “Flawless 2” (also known as Shared VPS) and continued making millions while on bail.

Pretty bold move that definitely didn’t help matters, but he was probably getting 10+ years anyway. After a 5-year investigation and all the money spent, of course they were going to make an example out of this guy and his crew.

Even still, it is shocking to see how harshly the courts treat people who cheat corporations out of money, compared to how they treat many other crimes. There are paedophiles, rapists and international drug smugglers getting away with suspended or lenient sentences and then here’s a guy selling dodgy firesticks who’s potentially looking at 20+ years.

I guess we no longer have a ‘shortage of prison spaces’ when it comes to defrauding major corporations out of money. If the costs of these subscriptions were more sensible, maybe there wouldn’t be a market for hacked Firesticks in the first place.

Will Mark Gould cough up his millions? Or will he do the time and live like a king once he’s out in his late 50s/early 60s? I guess that depends on his tolerance for jail.

For the creep who hacked a ‘Ring’ camera and was talking to a little girl in her bedroom, click HERE.