The police and public prosecutor's office in North Rhine-Westphalia began a large-scale operation against a suspected drug trafficking ring in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
As the police in Düsseldorf announced, the officers searched a total of 16 residential and commercial buildings in various cities in the state.
The investigations are directed against six men and two women who are said to have sold over two tons of drugs within a year.
The police searched buildings in Düsseldorf, Cologne, Leverkusen, Hilden, Leichlingen, Langenfeld, Erkrath, Winterburg, Hillesheim and Jünkerath.
She arrested a 27-year-old and two 29-year-old suspects.
The investigators also wanted to confiscate assets worth over nine million euros and secure further evidence.
According to their own statements, the investigators had collected information about the activities of the gang from data from the Encrochat software used by criminals.
The group is accused of trading around 50 kilograms of hashish and 30 kilograms of cocaine in the period from March 2020 to June 2021, in addition to “tons” of marijuana.
The public prosecutor's office and the Düsseldorf police want to take stock during the day.
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) only decided at the end of March that messages transmitted via Encrochat are admissible as evidence in court.
Suspected criminals from the field of organized crime had communicated across Europe via the Encrochat network.
They planned the most serious crimes.
French and Dutch investigators, in cooperation with the EU authorities Europol and Eurojust, succeeded in hacking the program in 2020.
This enabled the cell phones of tens of thousands of suspected criminals to be monitored.
As a result of the decryption, thousands of criminal proceedings were initiated in Germany.