Vietnam charges seven over HiAnime, the piracy site that briefly out-streamed Disney+

Key points

• Vietnamese police have arrested and charged seven people accused of running HiAnime, the largest anime piracy site before its June 2025 shutdown.
• Investigators say the group built more than 100 websites hosting over 26,000 pirated anime films.
• Prosecutors put the illegal advertising revenue at roughly $12.85 million between 2020 and April 2026.
• Four defendants are in custody. Three are under house arrest.
• The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment credited U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Justice for supporting the multi-year case.

Seven people in Vietnam are facing prosecution over HiAnime, a free anime streaming site that at its peak pulled more traffic than Disney+ and Crunchyroll combined.

HiAnime was not a hacking crew or a ransomware gang. It was a piracy business. It offered subtitled and dubbed anime for free, paid for by advertising, and it grew huge. Between late 2024 and 2025 it drew several hundred million visitors a month.

The site started life on the Zoro.to domain, rebranded to Aniwatch in July 2023, then to HiAnime in March 2024. Regulators noticed. The European Commission added it to its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, and the United States Trade Representative put it on the Notorious Markets list.

It went dark in June.

Who ran HiAnime, and what are they charged with?

Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security says seven suspects ran the operation and a web of related sites. All seven are charged with copyright infringement and money laundering, which means moving criminal proceeds through legitimate-looking accounts to hide where the money came from. Four are in detention. Three are confined to their homes while the case proceeds.

Police allege the group set up more than 100 websites and uploaded over 26,000 pirated anime films. They put the take at about $12.85 million in advertising revenue collected between 2020 and April 2026, as first reported by BleepingComputer.

Two Vietnamese units led the investigation: C03, the Economic Crimes Investigation Department, and A05, the Department of Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention.

Who pushed the case forward?

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, known as ACE, confirmed the arrests on Thursday. ACE is a coalition of more than 50 studios and networks, including most of the major Hollywood names, and it exists to shut down illegal streaming operations.

"ACE applauds the actions of Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security," the group said in its statement, thanking U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Justice for backing what it described as a multi-year investigation.

The HiAnime case follows a similar takedown earlier this year. In March, ACE announced the dismantling of AnimePlay, another large anime piracy platform. That one held more than 60 terabytes of shows and movies and had over 5 million registered users. ACE pulled its hosting servers and domains offline.

Should ordinary viewers be worried?

Probably not in a security sense, but there is a practical angle. Free piracy sites make their money from advertising, and the ad networks that serve them are often the same ones that push malicious downloads, fake software updates, and scam pop-ups. Anyone who used HiAnime regularly should treat any anime-related downloads from that period with suspicion, run a scan with the antivirus tool built into their computer, and change passwords for any account they logged into on the site or through a linked login.

If you paid nothing for a service, someone else paid for your attention. In HiAnime's case, prosecutors say that someone was the advertising industry, to the tune of nearly $13 million.

Legal alternatives, Crunchyroll, Netflix, Disney+, exist for a reason, and this case is a reminder that the criminal side of streaming is now attracting the kind of cross-border police work usually reserved for financial crime.