Piracy hits a brief pause, but web of leaks still unbroken

For Telugu cinema, 2025 was a year of split screens with glittering highs at the box office on one side, and a shadowy underworld of leaks, hacks and digital theft on the other. While some films soared and others sank, the real plot twist unfolded far away from theatre halls.

Behind the scenes, a coordinated, sustained effort by the Telangana police, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) and the Anti Video Piracy Cell (AVPC) of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce quietly closed in on the industry’s most elusive pirates.

By the time the net tightened, several key operators had been tracked and cornered, including Cyril Raja Amaladoss, who funnelled fresh releases to multiple syndicates, and then there was a more notorious name in circulation: Ravi Emandi of iBomma.

On October