More than 6550 suspects have been arrested after tech breaking experts “dismantled” the EncroChat communications tool.
One hundred and ninety-seven held in raids are among Europe’s most wanted lists.
Law officers have seized nearly one billion Euros in criminal funds.
The dismantling of EncroChat in 2020 sent shockwaves across organized crime gangs (OCGs) in Europe and beyond.
It helped to prevent violent attacks, attempted murders, corruption, and large-scale drug transports, as well as obtain large-scale information on organised crime.
OCGs worldwide illegally used the encryption tool EncroChat for criminal purposes.
Since the dismantling, investigators managed to intercept, share, and analyse over 115 million criminal conversations, by an estimated number of over 60, 000 users.
User hotspots were prevalent in source and destination countries for the trade in illicit drugs, as well in money laundering centres.
The information obtained by the French and Dutch authorities was shared with their counterparts in EU Member States and third countries, at their request.
Based on accumulated figures from all authorities involved, this led to the following results, three years after the encryption was broken by law enforcement:
- 6558 suspects arrested, amongst whom 197 High Value Targets
- 7134 years of imprisonment of convicted criminals up to now
- €739.7 million in cash
- €154.1 million frozen in assets or bank accounts
- 30.5 million pills of chemical drugs
- 103.5 tonnes of cocaine
- 163.4 tonnes of cannabis
- 3.3 tonnes of heroin
- 971 vehicles
- 271 estates or homes
- 923 weapons seized, as well as 21,750 rounds of ammunition and 68 explosives
- 83 boats and 40 planes
Investigations into the alleged criminal conduct of the company operating EncroChat were restarted by the French Gendarmerie Nationale in 2017, after discovering that the phones were regularly found during operations against OCGs.
Later investigations proved that the company behind the tool was operating via servers in France.
Eventually, it was possible to place a technical device to go beyond the encryption technique and obtain access to users’ correspondence.
A case was opened at Eurojust in 2019 by the French authorities.
In the first instance, data was shared with the Netherlands, which led to the setting up of the JIT in April 2020.
Since then, information on criminal activities was shared with national authorities within and outside the EU, at their request.
EncroChat phones were presented as guaranteeing perfect anonymity, discretion, and no traceability to users.
It also had functions intended to ensure the automatic deletion of messages and a specific PIN code to remove all data on the device.
This would allow users to quickly erase compromising messages, for example at the time of arrest by the police.
In addition, the device could be erased from a distance by the reseller/helpdesk.
EncroChat sold crypto telephones for around €1000 each, on an international scale.
It also offered subscriptions with worldwide coverage, at a cost of €1500 for a six-month period, with 24/7 support.