More than 6,500 people arrested, “a hundred murders or kidnappings” avoided: the dismantling in 2020 of the global encrypted communications network EncroChat was “a turning point” in the fight against organized crime, according to a report prepared on Tuesday, the 27th June by Europol.
The European police cooperation agencies, Europol, and judicial cooperation, Eurojust, as well as the French and Dutch prosecutors presented this hunting board during a press conference in Lille (north), from where the investigation had begun in 2018 after the location. on EncroChat’s Roubaix servers.
6,500 arrests
In this phase, 6,658 people have been arrested, including 197 “high-value targets”, nearly 900 million euros in seized or frozen criminal assets, more than 100 tons of cocaine, 160 tons of cannabis, 923 weapons, 40 planes or 271 homes and property seized, listed by Europol.
It also “avoided a hundred murders or kidnappings that could have ended badly,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol’s deputy executive director. The sentences pronounced thanks to the decryption amount to 7134 years in prison.
“Up to 123 countries” were involved in the operation, which “undoubtedly marked a turning point in the fight against organized crime” and international cooperation to deal with it, Lecouffe stressed.
“The Main Thing Is Done”
The infiltration of this network, which promised criminal groups a lack of absolute traceability, made it possible to intercept 115 million “criminal conversations” from some 60,000 users.
For the exploitation of this mass of data, “we are not at the end of the road but we have done the essential”, specified Mr. Lecouffe. In France, 84 proceedings have been opened, Lille prosecutor Carole Etienne said.
The users of the network were “particularly concentrated in the countries of origin and destination” of drug trafficking, and “in money laundering centers,” says Europol.
The dismantling of EncroChat was announced in July 2020 by the French and Dutch judicial and police authorities, after the network detected, on June 13, 2020, that it had been infiltrated.
EncroChat sold for around 1000 euros fully encrypted phones, without camera, microphone, GPS or USB port, with a “panic PIN code” option that allows you to erase the flash. Enough to contribute, in three years, “some 200 million euros to the group that set it up,” according to Europol.
“Identified” organizers
“The main leaders of the structure, developers of the solution, logistics managers, members and/or telephone resellers were identified”, Ms. Etienne also indicated.
The investigation into the organizers of the network itself has been the subject of a judicial investigation opened since May 2020 by the specialized interregional jurisdiction (Jirs) of Lille.
“A dozen people are concerned” about this “basic file”, about acts committed in France, in particular in Roubaix, but also in Canada, in the Dominican Republic, in Spain, in the Netherlands, in the United Kingdom, in Hong Kong or Panama, between 2017 and 2021.
In this phase, three people, arrested in June 2022 in Spain, have been charged for this aspect in France, “in particular, leaders of criminal associations with a view to preparing crimes or misdemeanors,” clarifies at-ella.
Two of them remained in pretrial detention. His defense had attempted to challenge these charges before the Douai Court of Appeal. “Other people have been located outside the European Union” and the proceedings “are ongoing”, according to Ms. Etienne.
solid back
The French and international press had mentioned arrests in the spring of 2022 in Dubai and the Dominican Republic, one of which would have been that of Paul K., a Canadian suspected of leading the organization. He was later released.
Three suspects have also been arrested in the Netherlands and a fourth is on the run, said the Dutch prosecutor for international cooperation, Renske Mackor.
They are considered the “middle layer” between EncroChat management and the phone receivers. The two prosecutors defended the legal strength of this stump file, which the defendants are trying to challenge in the incidental proceedings.
Source: BFM TV
