MAM
Dream Theatre is WWE’s licensing agent in India
MUMBAI: World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announced today that Dream Theatre has been appointed as a licensing agent in India for WWE.
Dream Theatre has secured licensees to launch WWE products across apparel, bags, stationery, gifts and novelties lines. The team will also focus on consumer promotions to make WWE products more accessible to its fan base in India.
WWE products will be available in standalone as well as retail chain stores across the country including Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Hamleys, Pantaloons, Central, Crossword, More, Hypercity, Lilliput and others.
Dream Theatre founder and CEO Jiggy George said that products will hit shelves next February-March.
The deal is for two years and is on a revenue sharing basis. “We are delighted to partner with WWE and reach out to its superb fan base in India. WWE is immensely popular with fans of all ages and this partnership greatly fortifies Dream Theatre‘s portfolio. WWE is the second most popular sport after India cricket. Our market for products will be the Metros as well as the class A,B towns. We are targeting the kids and teens. The North in terms of Punjab and Chandigarh should do particularly well for us”
WWE International executive VP Andrew Whitaker said, “The tremendous demand for official WWE product from our huge Indian fan base has been driven by having such highly rated television programming on Ten Sports over the last decade. A partnership with a well established and highly regarded agent like Dream Theatre is a major step towards meeting that demand.”
George adds that while piracy is a threat for any product that is popular it is a function of lack of products in the marketplace and not having the right price points. “WWE is very popular and so it is important that products are available. As organised retail grows, piracy will come down. We are seeing this already. We expect that WWE products like T-shirts and back to school items will work well.”
With nine hours of WWE programming broadcast each week on Ten Sports, WWE Superstars, Divas and Hall Of Famers can be seen on more than 68 million homes across the country.
Digital
Global piracy networks evolve into multibillion-dollar crime syndicates
From bootleg DVDs to drug cartels, the new faces of organised crime are hiding in plain sight
LONDON: Gone are the days of the local “dodgy DVD” man at the car boot sale. According to a landmark investigation by Digital Citizens Alliance and IP House, the world of digital piracy has undergone a chilling transformation into a sophisticated, multibillion-dollar ecosystem of organised crime. Far from being a victimless hobby, illicit streaming is now the “financial architecture” for global syndicates involved in everything from human trafficking and narcotics to funding international terrorism.
The joint report, titled “Organized. Piracy. Crime.”, reveals that modern piracy networks have ditched traditional hierarchies for a decentralized, digital-first model that is harder to track than a ghost in the machine. These groups use a “franchise model,” selling turnkey piracy kits, complete with streaming panels and content libraries, to operators worldwide, allowing the “CEOs” of these syndicates to remain anonymous while smaller cells take the heat.
In November 2024, European authorities dismantled a pay-TV network serving 22 million subscribers that generated a staggering $288 million (£230 million) per month. During raids across 11 countries, police seized not just servers and cryptocurrency, but a small army’s worth of drugs and firearms.
The crossover between digital theft and violent crime is no longer a theory. In Brazil, investigators found that piracy has become a “Plan B” for drug traffickers, providing low-risk, high-reward revenue to buy weapons and expand operations.
Operation fake (Spain): Exposed a syndicate combining content theft with property fraud, drug trafficking, and industrial-scale money laundering, resulting in 30 arrests and $12.7 million in frozen assets.
The “Hells Angels” connection: A Canadian investigation linked a piracy operator to members of the Hells Angels, noting he had previously been sentenced for cocaine smuggling.
Terrorist funding: Groups like Hezbollah and D-Company (led by global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim) have historically used piracy proceeds to fund their activities. Al-Manar, a banned terrorist television network, currently uses illegal IPTV services to bypass U.S. broadcast bans.
Perhaps most disturbing is the link to human exploitation. North East Regional Organised Crime Unit detective sergeant James Woodcock stated that “illegal streaming services… help fund wider organised crime such as human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, drug supply and other sinister crimes”.
In Southeast Asia, an estimated 220,000 people are being held in “polycriminal” compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia, forced to run cyber scams and potentially power the very IPTV panels used by Western viewers.
These syndicates have become masters of financial disguise, moving money faster than a 5G connection. Using shell companies, “hawala” informal payment systems, and cryptocurrency “mixing” services, they convert illegal subscriptions into luxury cars, real estate, and jewelry.
A prime example is the U.S. prosecution of IPTV mogul Bill Omar Carrasquillo (known as “Omi in a Hellcat”), whose Gears TV service generated tens of millions of dollars used to fund a lifestyle of luxury vehicles and commercial property.
Despite these networks meeting every international definition of organised crime set by the United Nations and Interpol, the report argues that authorities are currently “bringing a knife to a digital gunfight”.
The authors are urging governments to adopt stricter “site-blocking” laws, already used in over 50 countries, to cut off overseas criminals from domestic markets. As digital piracy generates an estimated $40 billion globally each year, the message is clear: if it operates like the mafia and launders like the mafia, it’s time to treat it like the mafia.
While the public in countries like Brazil and India (over 60 per cent) clearly see the link between piracy and organised crime, recognition in the UK and US remains lower. It seems the biggest hurdle to stopping these syndicates isn’t just technology, but the realization by consumers that their monthly “bargain” stream might be paying for someone else’s misery.
