Group busted for alleged pay-TV fraud in Europe The European Union's judicial cooperation agency says it has helped bust a criminal gang responsible for fraud with pay-TV subscription services, in the first case of its kind on the continent

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A European Union law enforcement agency says it helped bust a criminal network that was allegedly responsible for fraud with pay-TV subscription services, in the first case of its kind on the continent.

EU judicial coordination agency Eurojust said one person was arrested and 22 suspects were identified during an operation on Wednesday. The agency says more than 200 servers also were taken offline in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

The EU agency says the alleged criminal gang began in 2015 illegally rebroadcasting and selling services similar to those offered by companies such as Sky Italia and Netflix. It says special servers were used to disable encryption of original programming.

Eurojust says the investigation started in Italy and spread to other countries as alleged activity was uncovered.