Proceeds of Crime and Satellite TV

Mr D had previously pleaded guilty to charges of selling satellite TV boxes that had been modified for card sharing. The modifications allowed the boxes to be used to view satellite television without paying a subscription to the satellite television company. The CPS were pursuing Mr D under the Proceeds of Crime Act and seeking to confiscate the profits of his activity. Mr D had been selling TV boxes via eBay and via his own website and the CPS had obtained statements of financial transactions from eBay and from PayPal.

I was instructed to search the computer devices seized from Mr D for evidence to show that some of the transactions in the eBay and PayPal statements were the result of legitimate activity. I found no such evidence.

Expert Witness Letter Describing Examination

13 December

Mr S
S Solicitors

Dear Mr S

Mr D

I have examined the two exhibits from top to bottom.

AAA/14 is a laptop computer and AAA/13 is an external USB hard drive.

I found versions of a “dreamboxmagic” website on the laptop and on the USB drive. The two websites are similar … the prices on the laptop version appear to be £20 lower than the USB drive version. The price list from the USB drive version …

[A screenshot of a webpage has been omitted]

A page from the laptop version …

[A screenshot of a webpage has been omitted]

I did not see anything in either version of the websites to suggest that boxes were being sold without the modification to receive Sky.

I cannot say, from my inspection of the exhibits, that the websites on the laptop and on the USB drive were ever available via the Internet.

I enclose a document from the laptop and called “Ebay listing”. I cannot say, from my inspection of the exhibits, that the text in this document was ever used on Ebay.

I searched the laptop and the USB drive for any and all Word, Excel and other text documents. I found nothing to show equipment that had been sold without the modification to receive Sky. I did not find anything to show the intentions of the purchasers of the equipment that was sold.

I enclose a document called “dreambox sold” from the laptop (and also stored in the “cloud” via Dropbox) that you may consider unhelpful.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Graham Dilloway
Computer Expert Witness