Mastermind behind £7m Premier League pirate streaming gang ‘didn’t cover tracks very well’

The mastermind behind a national £7million illegal Premier League streaming gang “didn’t cover his tracks very well”, according to one of the lead investigators in the case.

Mark Gould, 36, who bought a £600,000 apartment in Cable Walk on the Greenwich riverside with his ill-gotten gains, was jailed for 11 years yesterday at Derby Crown Court.

Gould was a co-founder and the mastermind of Flawless and Shared – illegal streaming businesses which involved more than 50,000 customers and resellers, and 50 employees, one of which was positioned undercover at a specialist anti-piracy company. 

The organisations offered illegal access to watch Premier League matches, hundreds of channels from around the world and tens of thousands of on-demand films and TV shows.

But one of the lead investigators in the case, Hammersmith and Fulham’s Trading Standards officer Doug Love, told South London Press that Gould, who was busted in his Greenwich flat, was easy to track down.

“Gould’s registered address for Flawless was in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham,” said Mr Love. “That’s why we started investigating but the Premier League and The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) had already done a lot of work.

“Gould had previously lived in north Kensington and registered his company there. He was the sole director of the company and when we did a test purchase for one of the streaming products it led us straight to him.”

Love said they quickly secured a warrant to search Gould’s flat in 2018 which had at least “20 laptops linked up in his bedroom”. 

The officers “seized a lot of computer equipment” and from there managed to track down the rest of the gang spread out across the country. Mr Love said there were many other people involved in the gang but the main six culprits had been caught.

Gould initially pleaded not guilty to all charges before changing his plea after new evidence emerged on the second day of the trial. 

The Met had cracked Gould’s encrypted computers as part of a separate criminal investigation, exposing new evidence relevant to the case. 

In addition to pleading guilty to two conspiracies to defraud, Gould also admitted being in contempt of court, following the discovery that he had breached a court-imposed restraint order preventing him from dissipating his assets, by transferring almost £200,000 abroad after his arrest. 

The case was a private criminal prosecution brought by the Premier League and represents what is believed to be the largest ever prosecution of an illegal streaming network anywhere in the world.

Mr Love added: “This is a serious case and the sentence is indicative of that as well as providing a deterrent to further crimes like this. A lot of people see it as a victimless crime but the way we view sports would change forever if this continued.

“If these laws are undermined, football clubs start to lose a lot of money and fans wouldn’t be able to follow their teams. Lower league clubs would go to the wall.”

Kevin Plumb, Premier League General Counsel said: “[The] sentencing is the result of a long and complex prosecution of a highly sophisticated operation. 

“The sentences handed down, which are the longest sentences ever issued for piracy-related crimes, vindicate the efforts made to bring these individuals to justice and reflect the severity and extent of the crimes.

“The Premier League’s substantial financial contribution to the entire football pyramid is made possible through the ability to sell our broadcast rights.”

Pictured top: Mark Gould in his Greenwich flat during the raid by Trading Standards officers (Picture: Premier League/Hammersmith and Fulham council)