Europe’s underworld rocked after secret phones are hacked
▶ French and Dutch detectives cracked the EncroChat system
The UK has arrested more than 1,500 suspects in the 10 months since European detectives cracked an encrypted messaging service used by criminals to organise major drug smuggl ing operations and gangland hits.
French and Dutch detectives were able to secretly monitor communications between criminals for weeks on the EncroChat service before its administrators realised it had been penetrated and advised users to throw away their phones.
The information gathered has been shared across European police forces, leading to the seizure of tonnes of drugs and the dismantling of drug laboratories.
British officials revealed that evidence drawn from EncroChat conversations led to the seizure of five tonnes of class A drugs, 115 guns, nearly 3,000 rounds of ammunition and £57 million ($79m) in cash.
The UK’s National Crime Agency, which goes after top-level criminals, said operations across the country had “significantly disrupted and dismantled numerous crime groups”. Police in London
said criminal gangs could be disrupted for “weeks and months and possibly years to come”.
EncroChat had 60,000 users worldwide with the operators behind the service selling special customised Android phones for €1,000 ($1,200), each with a six-month contract costing €1,500.
Criminals spoke freely about their illegal operations on the subscription-only service, believing the system could not be infiltrated.
Those snared in the haul included Thomas Maher, a haulage firm boss who once owned the lorry that was used to smuggle the 39 Vietnamese migrants who suffocated in a sealed container in 2019.
Maher was never charged over the deaths of the migrants but was detained shortly after EncroChat was cracked. In one message Maher boasted of his involvement in organised crime for more than 20 years.
Police said that during this time he probably shipped tonnes of drugs and tens of millions of pounds around Europe. Maher used the messaging system to joke that he was in a great position to take advantage after the coronavirus lockdown was lifted.
“Once we get this travel ban lifted … we’ll be laughing mate I’m telling you that’s why I’m not stressing yet,” he said.
Dylan Broderick, 26, from Wembley, north-west London, was jailed for more than seven
years last month after he was caught using EncroChat to run his drugs operation.
He was arrested in the underground car park of his home and police found the phone when they searched his flat. It showed that Broderick, using the handle “Immensescarab”, sent thousands of messages planning drugs deliveries in and around London during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Police said they were also able to find 450 kilograms of ecstasy tablets hidden inside a digger that was shipped from London to Australia after cracking messages between criminals involved in the deal.
A British gang took the drugs into the UK and then shipped them back out to Australia hidden inside a lead-lined compartment within the boom of the excavator. The messages recovered from EncroChat included sketches of the hidden compartment.
The drugs had a street value of £44m, police said. Five men were arrested in the UK and Australia over the plot.