Europol on Tuesday, encro chat In July 2020, 6,558 people were arrested worldwide and €900 million of illegal criminal proceeds were seized.
Law enforcement agencies later discovered that a joint investigation launched by French and Dutch authorities intercepted and analyzed more than 115 million conversations between more than 60,000 users on an encrypted messaging platform. announced.
Nearly three years later, information from digital communications has yielded the following results.
- 6,558 suspects arrested, including 197 high-value targets
- 7,134 years in prison for convicted criminals
- €739.7 million in cash seized
- €154.1 million in assets or bank accounts frozen
- 30.5 million chemical drugs seized
- 103.5 tons of cocaine, 163.4 tons of cannabis and 3.3 tons of heroin were seized.
- 971 vehicles, 83 ships and 40 aircraft seized
- 271 property or residential foreclosures, and
- 923 weapons, 21,750 rounds of ammunition and 68 explosives were seized.
EncroChat was an encrypted phone network used by organized crime groups to plan drug deals, money laundering, extortion and even murder. Europol said at the time that “user hotspots were particularly present in cocaine and cannabis source and destination countries and money laundering centres.”
These mobile devices are marketed as offering “total anonymity” to users, allowing users to can now be manipulated without any penalty.
“EncroChat was selling crypto phones on an international scale for around €1,000 apiece,” Europol said. “We also offered a subscription for €1,500 for 6 months with worldwide coverage and 24/7 support.”
Unknown to users, the platform was compromised by French and Dutch law enforcement agencies in early 2020, providing valuable insight into the group and its tactics. The company’s servers, which operated out of France, were shut down.
Another service called Sky ECC was subsequently retired in March 2021 due to illegal use of encrypted communications. In June 2021, US and Australian authorities revealed that he had been operating for nearly three years to intercept an encrypted chat service called ANoM (aka AN0M). He has 27 million messages exchanged between gang members worldwide.
