Piracy Operator Goes from Jail to Getting Hired by a Tech Unicorn in a Month

Summary

Every year, dozens of pirate site operators and their affiliates are arrested worldwide. Aside from highlighting the damage to rightsholders and the risks involved, little context is provided. The case against the Argentinian operator of Al Ángulo TV provides a welcome exception, with a rather unique plot twist. With assistance from top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga, on August 20 Argentinian police arrested Alejo Warles. The authorities accused the 25-year-old, known online as Shishi, of running a piracy operation that had amassed millions of monthly users. In this case, it wasn’t just the authorities and rightsholders who commented publicly. Friends and family came out in support of Shishi, launching a fundraiser for his defense. Shishi’s attorney described the case as a “David versus Goliath” battle, a multinational company pitted against a young man with no prior criminal record, who lives with his grandparents. Sharing a Cell with Murderers While most pirate site operators prefer to stay off the radar following an arrest, Alejo Warles enjoys the opposite. He previously ran a YouTube channel and has been very active on social media recently, so this doesn’t really come as a surprise. Al Ángulo TV (July 2025) An excellent article by local news outlet El Entre Ríos, which deserves full credit, provides more detail about what happened after Warles’ arrest. Key commentary is provided by Warles himself. Police started hammering on Warles’ door around 07:45 on the morning of August 20. After he was arrested and handcuffed, a lawyer from LaLiga bought Warles’ some yogurt before he was sent to the police station in Paraná. The next day, Warles was transferred to the San Isidro Investigations headquarters with a police escort. “It was like they were bringing Pablo Escobar,” Warles notes, referring to the infamous drug lord. The pirate site operator ended up in a cell with people accused of crimes that didn’t take place behind a keyboard. While that certainly made an...