Indians held responsible for ‘Game of Thrones’ major leak

Four Indian men were arrested by the Mumbai Crime Branch, suspected of leaking the fourth episode of the infamous HBO show, ‘Game of Thrones’ before it was officially aired.

The accused individuals includes three current and one former employee of the Prime Focus Technology, a Mumbai based Company that stores and processes the series for the Indian streaming website Hotstar.

The Police made the proceedings after a complaint was submitted by Prime Focus, an officer said: “After the news of the leak became public, the Andheri Company carried out an internal inquiry. The servers could be accessed from the company’s offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. They detected that someone not authorized had accessed its servers from the Bengaluru office. They then approached us last week,” Indian Express reported.

The four men are said to be involved in leaking the scheduled fourth episode of the 7th season four days prior to its airing. After further investigation, the crime branch informed: “We suspect the accused leaked the episode for monetary reasons. Now that we have got their custody, we will interrogate them to find out the reason behind the crime. We are also probing if there is anyone else involved in the breach”.

All four arrested individuals are detained till August 21 for further investigation.

Hotstar issued a statement on the matter saying, “This is the first time in the history of Star India that an incident of this nature has occurred. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift and prompt action. We believe that valuable intellectual property is a critical part of the development of the creative industry and strict enforcement of the law is essential to protecting it. We at Star India & Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited stand committed and ready to help the law enforcement agencies with any technical assistance and help they may require in taking the investigation to its logical conclusion.”