- Criminal organizations around the world used an encrypted phone to exchange messages.
- But the gendarmie experts managed to develop a solution to capture their communications.
- Many arrests have been made in this case. The investigation continues to identify and arrest the members who made up this network.
Its name: EncroChat. A hypersecured, untraceable encrypted phone, guaranteeing complete anonymity to its users. In a fraction of a second, they can erase all the sensitive data it contains. The device, sold for 1,000 euros on the black market, has been adopted around the world by criminal organizations convinced that their conversations would not be intercepted by the security forces. But on the night of June 12 to 13, 2020, an alert message appeared on their screen. The network was "illegally infiltrated" by "government entities". "You are advised to turn off your device and dispose of it immediately. "
It was the gendarmes who carried out "this technological feat", explains Colonel Fabienne Lopez, head of the center for the fight against digital crime (C3N) to 20 Minutes . A feat achieved after several months of hard work in the laboratories of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN), in Pontoise.
It was in 2017 that pandores began to take an interest in these phones, which were increasingly seized during their investigations. Problem: the conversations being encrypted, they were unusable. However, they discover that the servers used by EncroChat are installed in the North of France. The Lille Interregional Specialized Jurisdiction (Jirs) will then open a preliminary investigation, entrusted to the C3N.
"The communications concerned only criminal activities"
Technicians from the IRCGN's Electronic Computing Department will then conduct in-depth research work, partly funded by European funds, to understand the operation of these devices and pierce their safe. They manage to develop a technical system "allowing to retrieve the conversations of the users of these phones live", continues Colonel Fabienne Lopez.
Messages analyzed by sixty gendarmes mobilized on this file. “Very quickly, you realize that the communications only concerned criminal activities, mainly drug trafficking. There have also been numerous reports of murders or serious bodily harm reported to the authorities of the countries concerned to prevent the commission of these crimes. "
In April 2020, under the aegis of Eurojust, a joint investigation team was formed with the Dutch police who are also closely interested in these devices used by 10,000 people in their country. The analysis of the millions of messages exchanged by their owners will allow them to arrest a hundred suspects and seize more than 8,000 kg of cocaine, 1.2 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine, dismantle 19 synthetic drug laboratories and get their hands on it on dozens of firearms, luxury watches, cars used to transport drugs, and more than millions of euros in cash. Even more serious, the investigations revealed "indications of flight from the police", which are taken "extremely seriously", underlined the chief of the Dutch police, Janine van den Berg, during a conference of press organized this Thursday in The Hague (Netherlands).
An investigation far from over
In France, "the tools put in place have made it possible to detect very high-level criminal structures", involved in the trafficking of arms or drugs, or money laundering, said Carole Etienne, prosecutor of the Republic of Lille, without saying more. This unprecedented investigation, which has already yielded numerous results, is far from over. A judicial investigation was opened last May and an investigating judge seized. "It is now a question of updating the members of this organization" which supplied these encrypted telephones to the world crime gotha, concludes Fabienne Lopez. Worldwide, at least 50,000 EncroChat devices were in use. At least until June 13.
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- Encryption
- Drug traffic
- Crime
- Delinquency
- Netherlands
- Gendarmerie