HiAnime was one of the largest and most popular free streaming sites for anime until its sudden closure earlier this year. Now, authorities in Vietnam have arrested seven people allegedly involved in the pirate site’s operation, as reported by Torrent Freak.
With a layout reminiscent of legit streaming giants like Netflix and Crunchyroll, HiAnime offered thousands of anime titles to watch for free. The site saw well over 150 million visits each month, making it a top target for anti-piracy groups. These arrests came after years of investigations into the piracy ring by organizations including U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Department of Justice, and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). ACE’s members include major names like Amazon, Netflix, Walt Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, and Paramount, to name a few.
In March 2026, HiAnime posted a goodbye message in plain text across its domains before going dark. Now, Vietnamese authorities have arrested four alleged ringleaders and charged them with copyright infringement and money laundering in connection with a pirate streaming network that operated over 100 websites, including HiAnime. Three people were arrested on charges of copyright infringement only. According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security’s anti-corruption and economic crime unit, the group offered more than 26,000 unlicensed titles across the network of sites, allegedly generating around $12.8 million via advertising revenue.
HiAnime had been battling against efforts to remove the site and its domains for years. The popular anime piracy site was previously known as Zoro and then Aniwatch, before rebranding itself to HiAnime in 2024. Back in 2023, ACE managed to take over the Zoro.to domain but not before the pirate site had relocated to Aniwatch. It seems the HiAnime rebrand may have also been made to counter moves against the pirate site, as it coincided with India’s blocking of several pirate sites including Aniwatch (as also reported by Torrent Freak).
Just days before HiAnime went offline in March this year, the U.S. Trade Representatives (USTR) released its annual review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy, which namechecked HiAnime on page 33. Then in May this year, the USTR classified Vietnam as a Priority Foreign Country over its failure to adequately address online piracy and launched a trade investigation (USTR press release).
Although acknowledging the Vietnamese authorities’ previous efforts to take down pirate sites operating in the country and to arrest the perpetrators, page 44 of the USTR report implied that the punishments had been too lax. The report made specific reference to the fines and suspended sentences handed out in the Fmovies case: “Vietnam recently had an uptick in criminal prosecutions against piracy operators in collaboration with U.S. enforcement authorities and stakeholders, which the United States hopes will continue. However, despite having criminal laws that provide for substantial fines and years of incarceration for copyright infringement, the defendants in recent criminal prosecutions received suspended sentences and were only ordered to pay relatively low financial penalties.”
The seven men in the HiAnime case are currently awaiting trial. If found guilty of the money laundering and copyright infringement charges, their punishment might be stricter than in Vietnam’s previous online piracy cases.
Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
