In the first Italian crackdown on digital TV piracy, police from Genoa have broken up an illegal ring that sold as many as 500,000 cloned digital decoders and smart cards – roughly equivalent to the number of legitimate subscribers across the country’s two pay-TV platforms, Telepiu and Stream.

The investigation began on April 18 when a police inspector at a Genoa fair noticed a satellite dealer exhibiting pirate smart cards and decoders on his stand.