Two illegal Starhub set-top box sellers charged in court

SINGAPORE - StarHub has commenced criminal prosecution against two illegal set-top box dealers today. This follows the successful raid of a storage facility by StarHub in Sep 2013, which uncovered a few hundred illegal set-top boxes.

StarHub has been tracking a syndicate that was distributing sales flyers for the sale of illegal set-top boxes that claim to be able to unscramble StarHub TV content, since early last year. After months of investigation, the importer of these boxes was identified and the raid was conducted with help from the police.

Foo Yong Chun Shaun, 27, and Chen Wenqiang Daniel, 32, appeared in court on May 7 to face charges for criminal offences under the Broadcasting Act in connection with the distribution of the illegal set-top boxes seized at the raid.

If convicted, they can be fined up to S$40,000, and/or jailed up to 3 years.

"As part of our continuous efforts to strengthen our network, StarHub recently completed an upgrading exercise migrating our pay TV customers to an enhanced encryption standard, which requires a new security smart card to decrypt our broadcast signals. This renders the illegal set-top boxes ineffective.," said Ms Lin Shu Fen, StarHub's Head of Entertainment & SmartLife.

abrahamr@sph.com.sg