MAM
Fan Anywhere assigns digital & comm mandate to Beeing Social and Mavcomm Consulting
Mumbai: Fan Anywhere, a start-up building the world’s first platform for celebrity NFTs, and NFTs & fan tokens of sports clubs, has assigned their digital & communications mandate to creative digital agency Beeing Social and boutique reputation consulting firm Mavcomm Consulting.
Beeing Social-Mavcomm Consulting team will deliver a whole host of solutions including communications strategy, planning, creatives, content, media relations and strategic social media outreach across mediums.
Co-founded by IIT Roorkee grads and experienced tech entrepreneurs Varun Chaudhary and Amit Kumar, Fan Anywhere aims to become one stop blockchain solution for a celebrity to engage the fan base and is in the process of raising investments and preparing to launch its Initial DEX Offering (IDO) in the near future.
Commenting on the association, Fan Anywhere co-founder and CEO Varun Chaudhary said, “We are building the world’s first platform for utility based celebrity NFTs,and NFTs & fan tokens of sports clubs, which will open gateways to Metaverses for celebrities. This is a rapidly emerging space which a lot of people beyond the immediate tech community are not very familiar with. Our emphasis will be on transitioning the celebrities as well as their fans towards the future of fan following and the Fan Anywhere way of ‘Reimagined Fandom.’ Beeing Social and Mavcomm Consulting showcased an in-depth understanding of the space and we are confident that they will position our messages accurately.”
Powered by Polygon, Fan Anywhere wants to revolutionise the culture of fandom with fan token offerings, exchange for fan tokens, NFT marketplace and rewards traversing the entire ecosystem, said the statement.
Beeing Social co-founder Abhishek Singh Rajpurohit said, “We are thrilled to be a part of FanAnywhere Project. Beeing Social and Mavcomm teams have delivered together on on multiple mandates and we are excited to partner again.”
Mavcomm Group co-founder and MD Anand Mahesh Talari said, “Fan Anywhere is in a very exciting space. In a country such as India where fans celebrate their passion with extreme love for celebrities even to the extent of building temples for some, we are confident that they are going to see great success. We are pleased to partner with them at this early phase and looking forward to communicate their messaging effectively. We enjoy great synergy with the Beeing Social team with our joint emphasis on delivering the best, we are looking forward to working together again on this powerful mandate.”
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.
