Riki Adal cashed in a “Mighty" pirate TV bonanza of almost £250,000 by illegally streaming Sky sports and movie channels and other premium television programmes for more than four years.

But his pirate operation was eventually traced to his home at Allerton Road in Stoke Newington, which was raided by the City of London’s Intellectual Property crime unit.

The 43-year-old had promoted streams branded as Mighty Plex, Mighty TV and Mighty Flex on Facebook and Telegram between 2017 and 2022.

He pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey last November to acquiring and distributing criminal property that infringed copyright.

He got a suspended prison sentence when he appeared at Inner London Crown Court on February 6. His 20-month term was suspended for two years but came with a 20-day rehabilitation order.

“Illegal streaming costs the entertainment industry millions every year,” Det Con Jason Theobald said after the case.

“It puts legitimate jobs at risk and can expose users to the risk of malware and identity theft. It also reduces income for new content and can fund other forms of crime.”

The illegal access was reported in 2022 by Sky. Adal made a full admission during questioning that he had run a panel for four years, providing illegal streams to customers for almost four years.

Investigators found Adal’s PayPal account received £247,552 in payments for IPTV programmes between December 2017 and October 2022.

He was arrested at his home address near Clissold Park on February 24 last year, where officers seized his mobile phone and a laptop that had been used to access for his stream, and shut down the service.

Adal had been running a panel that provided illegal streams operated as Mighty Plex, Mighty TV and Mighty Flex, he admitted during his police interview.

The City of London Police Intellectual Property unit is a specialist crime team protecting goods from intellectual property theft and online piracy. The unit was set up in 2013 by the government’s Intellectual Property Office as part of a nationwide operation into online fraud.