Fugitive ordered to pay £258,000
A CONVICTED criminal believed to be living in hiding in North Cyprus has been ordered to pay over a quarter of a million pounds by a court in the UK.
On Tuesday, September 13, Michael Hornung, 38, who originates from Hyde, in Greater Manchester, was ordered in his absence by Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court to pay an exact total of £258,642.95 under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 after having previously been found guilty of offences relating to the sale of illegal streaming devices, which enabled consumers to access subscription television channels without paying them.
According to the judgment, if he does not pay the money within the next three months then he will have to serve an additional three years in prison.
The ruling comes after Mr Hornung was sentenced to four years and six months behind bars in June, but tracking him down may be difficult as his exact whereabouts are unknown.
He was convicted and sentenced in absence after an investigation conducted by the Federation against Copyright Theft (Fact) and Greater Manchester Police found via a test purchase that the devices sold by Mr Hornung were able to access hundreds of channels from Virgin
Media’s subscription service, including normally expensive packages such as Sky Sports and Sky Movies, without any payment being made.
The investigation had been running since 2014, with Fact having identified the supplier of the devices as Mr Hornung, who was operating on the online platform CS World under the alias “NoHatsNoTrainers”.
It is estimated that Mr Hornung sold up to 2,700 set top boxes over a three-year period between January 2014 and January 2017, costing the affected media companies some £2 million in lost revenue as a result.
However, by the time he was prosecuted, Mr Hornung was nowhere to be found, with Judge Angela Nield stating back in June that he had “deliberately absconded” and that “it is not unreasonable for this court to conclude that this was a planned escape”.
Fact confirmed to Cyprus Today that it had learnt that Mr Hornung is in North Cyprus through a combination of its own investigation and “a confidential source”, and added that “we are privy to the region [Mr Hornung] has absconded to in North Cyprus”.
Commenting on this week’s confiscation court order, Fact’s chief executive Kieron Sharp
said that it “makes clear the consequences of providing illegal streaming services, a serious criminal offence which in this case has led to a substantial prison sentence and now severe financial penalties”.
Mr Sharp added: “We are pleased the court has recognised the seriousness of piracyrelated crime and we thank Greater Manchester Police for their support and assistance during the course of a complex investigation.”
He said that if the money is recovered, it will “go back to public bodies, including law enforcement agencies, which assists them in their efforts to bring criminals to justice”.