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 manga 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 $4,700,000 in advertising revenue through aggressive pop-ups. Much of the advertising was pornographic, which raises concerns as 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 matches 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,” describes the 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.”
As part of the enforcement operation, the police raided a suspect’s house in Almeria, Spain, and discovered what they describe as a “complex technological setup” that supported the platform’s operation.
The suspect was also found to be in the midst of developing a second website, possibly for redundancy or to port the pirate platform there in case of disruption, though the raid prevented its launch.
The 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
The police made three more arrests in the same law enforcement action, but not many details about the roles these people held were shared.
The Spanish authorities noted that the operation had a significant international impact, highlighting major financial and reputational damage to publishers and the broader cultural industry.
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