Spain dismantles major $4.7M manga piracy platform, arrests four

Source: Bleeping Computer

The Spanish police have dismantled what they claim is the largest Spanish‑language manga piracy platform, operating since 2014 and serving millions of monthly users worldwide.

Manga is the Japanese term for comics and graphic novels, typically referring to those created in Japan and widely read around the world.

The piracy platform, which wasn’t named in the police announcement, offered free access to copyright‑protected works and generated ad revenue from the web traffic it received.

According to the authorities, who launched an investigation in June 2025, the platform generated over $4.7 million in advertising revenue through aggressive pop‑ups. Much of the advertising was pornographic, raising concerns because many of the site’s visitors were minors. These pop‑ups were shown to users on every action they took on the site—including selecting content, reading descriptions, or browsing catalogs—maximizing advertising impressions.

TorrentFreak recently reported that the Spanish‑language manga platform Tu Manga Online (TMO) was taken offline following legal pressure, including actions by Korean intellectual‑property rights holders. The platform description and timelines provided in the Spanish police announcement from earlier today match the particular platform, though TMO isn’t explicitly named.

“Since 2014, it had systematically provided free and unauthorized access to a massive volume of works protected by intellectual property rights,” – police announcement.

“The portal had also established itself as the main reference point for manga piracy in Spanish, with millions of monthly visits and significant international reach, causing serious harm to rights holders, publishers, translators, and the cultural industry as a whole.”

Raid and seizure

As part of the enforcement operation, police raided a suspect’s house in Almería, Spain, and discovered what they described as a “complex technological setup” that supported the platform’s operation. The suspect was also in the midst of developing a second website, possibly for redundancy or to port the pirate platform in case of disruption; the raid prevented its launch.

Police confiscated two USB devices hidden inside a wall thermometer, which contained “cold” cryptocurrency wallets holding over $470,000 in digital assets.

Source: Policia Nacional

Arrests and impact

The police made three additional arrests in the same law‑enforcement action, though details about the roles of those individuals were not disclosed.

Spanish authorities noted that the operation had a significant international impact, highlighting major financial and reputational damage to publishers and the broader cultural industry.