For encrypted conversations, the general public knows Telegram or Signal. Maybe less EncroChat. And for good reason. The judicial and police authorities of France and the Netherlands announced Thursday the dismantling of this global network of encrypted communications, used almost exclusively by criminal organizations.
# Cybercrime🏆 1st world: #gendarmes of # C3N "crack" #EncroChat technology that encrypts communications!
And 90% of EncroChat users ... are involved in criminal networks!
MultiplesMany chains of criminals are dismantled around the world. pic.twitter.com/rgPAUdYb8r
It served the interests of drug traffickers, but also played a role in money laundering, extortion, kidnapping and even murder.
Multiple arrests have taken place in several European countries, announced investigators live from the headquarters of Eurojust, the body for judicial cooperation between European countries based in The Hague, the Netherlands.
"We have used the fact that criminals blindly trust crypto-communication and speak freely," said Andy Kraag of the Dutch police. Investigators were able to infiltrate the network. The data recovered is "a gold mine providing us with evidence that would have cost us years in normal times," she says.
The Lille prosecutor, Carole Etienne, the deputy director of the judicial police of the French National Gendarmerie, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, and the Dutch attorney general John Lucas took part in this conference.
A hundred suspects arrested
The joint Franco-Dutch investigation launched in 2018 made it possible to intercept and decipher in real time, and unbeknownst to criminals, "more than 100 million messages" exchanged via EncroChat around the world.
On June 13, the network became aware of the intrusion and sent an “alert” message to all of its customers, telling them that it had been “illegally infiltrated” by government entities. He advised them to get rid of their phones, but too late for many of them, as investigators had access to millions of messages. Some 50,000 of these phones were in circulation in 2020.
In 2017, the first encrypted phones were detected by French authorities during operations against criminals.
Under the authority of the prosecution of the Lille Interregional Specialized Jurisdiction, judicial information was opened on May 28. Dutch authorities say the infiltration of EncroChat has already prevented the commission of "dozens of violent crimes", including kidnappings, murders and shootings.
In the Netherlands alone, the investigation led to the arrest of "more than 100 suspects", the seizure of more than 8,000 kg of cocaine and 1.2 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine, the dismantling of 19 laboratories of synthetic drugs, the seizure of dozens of automatic firearms or 25 cars, some including secret compartments as well as nearly 25 million euros in cash.
Data to be used
"It is shocking to see with what facility and without the least scruples this type of serious criminal acts are debated and planned" on EncroChat, insist the authorities of this country.
The recovered data should be used for years. They also made it possible to update "indications of flight from the police" and demonstrated "clearly the role of corruption throughout the chain of illicit traffic".
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