In 2016, Isaimini was shut down by the Tamil Nadu police in a joint operation with the FBI. The site's operators were arrested, and several servers were seized.

The Indian government, via the Information Technology Act, 2000, began coercing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like BSNL, Airtel, and Jio (which launched in late 2015) to block these domains. However, the "cat and mouse" game was in full force. Users simply switched to VPNs or Telegram groups that shared the latest Isaimini proxy links.

By mid-2015, the Tamil Film Producers Council pushed the Chennai Cyber Crime Cell into action. Several arrests were made—not of the site owners (who operated from servers in Russia, Ukraine, or the UAE), but of uploaders and local mirror hosts. One notable case: a 24-year-old engineering graduate from Madurai was arrested for running an Isaimini mirror, exposing how young tech enthusiasts were lured into piracy for small fees or ego.