Crime gangs smashed in police sting
Drugs worth £25 million have been seized and 59 people arrested in a cross-border operation that has been labelled one of Police Scotland’s most significant cases.
More than 700 people have been arrested so far across Europe after investigators cracked encrypted platform Encrochat.
A military-grade encrypted communication system used by organised criminals trading in drugs and guns has been hacked by law enforcement in one of the biggest operations of its kind.
Thousands of officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA), regional crime squads and every police force in the UK have been involved in a massive international sting that was launched in April.
More than 700 people have been arrested so far, including police officers and law enforcement officials. Drugs worth £80 million, 77 guns and more than £54m in cash has been seized.
After four years of work by international teams, French investigators managed to access Encrochat, an encrypted platform used by 60,000 people worldwide, including around 10,000 in the UK, for what law enforcement agencies claim were purely criminal purposes.
The company, which charged £1,500 for a device on a six-month contract, sent out a warning to users early last month to say that its servers had been hacked by a government entity.
This left investigators with a race against time to make the most of the wealth of information available on the platform, targeting “Mr and Mrs Bigs” before they could cover their tracks.
International investigators were also going after the team who ran Encrochat, who they said led “luxury lifestyles”, although the technology itself is not illegal.
In one of Police Scotland’s most significant operations, more than £7m in cash, ammunition, and industrial pill presses were seized along with stolen vehicles.
Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, herbal cannabis and thousands of Etizolam tablets were found as part of Operation Venetic.
A joint investigation involving Police Scotland, the NCA and the Metropolitan Police resulted in 28 million of the Etizolam – or fake valium – tablets worth £14m being seized in Kent.
Overall drugs worth £25m, firearms and explosives were seized in the cross-border operation, with 59 people arrested in Scotland.
NCA director of investigations Nikki Holland said the breach – described by one official as like breaking the Enigma code – was like “having an inside person in every top organised crime group in the country”.