Peru reports over 1 mln illegal cable TV connections

Peru has registered around 1 million illegal cable TV connections, which are avoiding paying for service and related taxes, the country's director of tax investigations Mario Zuniga said Wednesday.

In a statement, Zuniga said the use of illegal connections shows that people are clearly seeking to avoid lawful payments and are thus reducing the revenue of the government and the companies.

Companies offering such illegal connections now have more clients in Peru than the official television service operators, according to the statement.

The country's tax office estimates that this widespread piracy costs the service operators over 181 million U.S. dollars in lost revenue a year, as well as around 51 million U.S. dollars for the state.

It has now become relatively simple for illegal cable operators to set up decoder boxes in people's homes, allowing their televisions to unscramble and receive the channels' feeds.

Peruvian authorities have spent the past few months seeking to restrict the use and purchase of such devices but Zuniga said these decoders continue to enter the country illegally. Enditem