It was intended as words of wisdom, but it oozed cockiness, as Activeits plotted his path to fortune on an internet forum popular with spammers.

The boast was right there in the title of the thread: “How i made 1k a day or more.”

Typing under the fictitious name, he detailed his involvement with “a thing called IPTV” and how he’d built an unauthorized online television streaming service, one that illegally rebroadcast channels to subscribers at cheap rates.

“There is a TON of money to be made in IPTV and i’m just getting started!” Activeits wrote on March 14, 2018, later dismissing concerns he would get sued or