The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, has shut down ANIMEFLIX, a notorious piracy site dedicated to anime content.

Animeflix, which was reportedly based near Helsinki, Finland, recorded between 7 and 13 million monthly visits and had 2 million unique visitors per month.

While much of the site’s traffic came from the United States, followed by India and the Philippines, reports indicate that unique visitors were also recorded from many other countries, including Greece.

Users of the illegal website, which was available at no cost, could access over 500 anime movies and over 400 anime series. The site’s user interface closely resembled those of legitimate streaming services, allowing users to create accounts, bookmark their favorite content, and create collections of content. It also contained a schedule of upcoming series.

Animeflix, which attracted tens of millions of monthly visitors, had also created a group chat (live chat) with more than 35,000 members, who are now running to leave, fearing possible criminal penalties. Similar concerns have been raised by millions of users who have joined illegal pirate streams around the world, as well as thousands of pirate groups on social media.

Information indicates that coordination has been intensified for the protection of television rights with the aim of reducing digital piracy around the world, and large operations are coming to suppress these illegal streams, with now important legal provisions for the criminal complicity of end users.