Hyderabad: The Hyderabad cybercrime police successfully dismantled the major movie piracy racket by arresting five key individuals involved in the illegal distribution of copyrighted films and issuing notices to five individuals for aiding and abetting the fraud.
These arrests were the sequel of a comprehensive investigation into the piracy of several new Telugu films including “HIT: The Third Case”, “#Single”, “Kuberaa” and “Hari Hara Veera Mallu” which have been uploaded onto the illegal websites.
The police received a complaint from Yarra Manindra Babu, representing the Anti-Video Piracy Cell of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce (TFCC), Hyderabad. He reported that the Telugu film “#Single” released on May 9, 2025, “Hit: The Third Case released on May 1 2025 has been pirated and illegally circulated online on the very first day of the movie release.
The pirated HD versions were traced to popular piracy platforms like 1TamilBlasters, 5MoviezRulz, and 1TamilMV. The preliminary findings of forensic watermarking pointed towards leakage from the theatre. Based on the complaint, the police booked a case under relevant provisions of BNS and IT, Copyright and Cinematograph Acts.
The Anti-Video Piracy Cell of TFCC also alleged that the Telugu film “”Kubera” was also pirated and uploaded onto websites like 1TamilBlasters on the same day of the release of the movie. During investigation, the police identified five persons as prime accused in the case.
They were Ashwani Kumar (21) and Arsalan Ahmed (23), both natives of Bihar, Cyril Infant Raj Amaladoss (32), a crypto trader and Sudhakaran (31), both natives of Tamil Nadu, and Jana Kiran Kumar (29), an AC Technician and resident of Amalapuram in East Godavari. The five persons were arrested on different occasions from August till September 2025, Hyderabad Police Commissioner CV Anand said.
The police said the movie piracy was taking place mainly in two ways. One method is the leakage of HD copy of the movie from the digital service providers and the other is through the Cam releases, which involve camcorder recording of the on-screen projection of a movie in a theatre on the very first day of screening by individuals using the handheld cameras, smart phones, or even hidden recording devices.
This enables groups to pirate movies which are in their theatrical period and not released for personal entertainment. In other words through the Camrips, leaked studio copies or hacked distribution channels, the police said.
