Indian police arrest four for leaking Game of Thrones episode

Indian police have arrested four people suspected of leaking an episode of the hugely popular TV show Game of Thrones before it was aired

An image from episode 4 of Game of Thrones’ seventh season
An image from episode 4 of Game of Thrones’ seventh season

Four men were arrested on Monday for allegedly leaking episode 4 from season 7 of the popular television series Game of Thrones.

Episode four of the seventh season was leaked on 4 August, days before it was due to air globally.

Three of the accused are current employees of Prime Focus Technology, while one is a former employee.

Prime Focus, a Mumbai-based company that stores and processes the series for Indian streaming website Hotstar, had lodged a complaint with police.

After the leak, the firm which deals in technological aid to media companies carried out an internal enquiry which revealed that the episode was accessed using ID of their employee Abhishekh Ghadiyal. But the stolen data was sent using email account of an ex-employee Mohammed Suhail.

Police has arrested Ghadiyal, Suhail, Bhaskar Navinchandra Joshi and Alok Sharma in the case.

During the course of investigation, police found that Ghadiyal was aided by his colleague Joshi and the episode was later forwarded to Sharma for uploading.

After receiving a complaint "we investigated the case and have arrested four individuals for unauthorised publication of the fourth episode from season seven," Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan told AFP news agency.

The four have been charged with criminal breach of trust and computer related offences and will be detained until 21 August, he said.

The show produced by HBO has seen several leaks over the years. Most recently a group of hackers said they had stolen 1.5TB of data, allegedly including episodes of Ballers, Room 104 and scripts from Game of Thrones episodes. On Monday they leaked some of the unaired material.

The fantasy series is already the most pirated show in TV history.