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ENCROCHAT DISMANTLING LED TO 6,558 ARRESTS AND THE SEIZURE OF $979M IN CRIMINAL
FUNDS

June 28, 2023  By Pierluigi Paganini




EUROPOL ANNOUNCED THAT THE TAKEDOWN OF THE ENCROCHAT ENCRYPTED CHAT NETWORK HAS
LED TO THE ARREST OF 6,558 PEOPLE AND THE SEIZURE OF $979 MILLION IN ILLICIT
FUNDS.

Europol announced that the dismantling of the encrypted chat network EncroChat
has led to the arrest of over 6,558 individuals worldwide and the seizure of
$979 million in criminal funds.

In July 2020, a joint operation conducted by European and British law
enforcement agencies resulted in the arrest of hundreds of alleged drug dealers
and other crooks. The police infiltrated the global network of the encrypted
chatting app that was used by criminals involved in drug dealing, money
laundering, extortions, and even murders.


00:00/00:00


Since 2017, the police have launched an investigation into phones that were used
by criminals to secure their communications. The investigators discovered that
the phones were running the EncroChat application, software provided by a
company operating from servers in France.

Europol said that in early 2020, EncroChat was one of the largest providers of
encrypted digital communication, one of the most popular in the criminal
ecosystem. The handset and the services are offered for around £1,500 for a
six-month subscription, it had 60,000 users worldwide.

French authorities opened a case at the EU Agency for Criminal Justice
Cooperation (Eurojust), towards the Netherlands in 2019

EncroChat phones are used to securely exchange data and messages with pre-loaded
apps for secure instant messaging, VOIP calling. The application includes
self-destruct messages and a ‘remote wipe’ feature to remotely wipe data on the
handset in case of emergency.

French and Dutch police hacked into the network and analyzed millions of
messages and hundreds of thousands of images in real-time.

Law enforcement agencies claimed to have cracked the encryption code of
EncroChat in March and started penetrating the network from April 1, 2020.
EncroChat discovered the hack on June 13 and urged its users to throw away their
devices due to the ongoing operation conducted by the police.

European authorities successfully dismantled Encrochat and disrupted one of the
key communication networks used by criminal organizations in Europe.

In July 2020, both National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police also announced
that they have shut down the EncroChat servers and arrested 746 suspects.

According to the press release published by Europol, since the dismantling, law
enforcement intercepted, shared and analyzed over 115 million criminal
conversations, involving over 60 000 users.  

“User hotspots were prevalent in source and destination countries for the trade
in illicit drugs, as well as in money laundering centres.” reads the press
release.  

“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:

 * 6 558 suspects arrested, including 197 High Value Targets  
 * 7 134 years of imprisonment of convicted criminals up to now
 * EUR 739.7 million in cash seized
 * EUR 154.1 million frozen in assets or bank accounts
 * 30.5 million pills of chemical drugs seized
 * 103.5 tonnes of cocaine seized
 * 163.4 tonnes of cannabis seized
 * 3.3 tonnes of heroin seized
 * 971 vehicles seized
 * 271 estates or homes seized
 * 923 weapons seized, as well as 21 750 rounds of ammunition and 68 explosives
 * 83 boats and 40 planes seized

EncroChat was selling crypto phones for around EUR 1 000 each, it was also
offering subscriptions with worldwide coverage, at a cost of 1 500 EUR for a
six-month period, with 24/7 support.

In March 2021, another joint operation conducted by the European police and
coordinated by Europol lead to the arrest of at least 80 people after shutting
down the Sky Global Sky ECC encrypted phone network used by organized crime
groups. Sky ECC was chosen by many cybercriminals after the shutdown of
EncroChat.

The police claimed to have compromised the Sky ECC network and eavesdropped on
suspects’ communications.

According to the indictment, Sky Global employees allowed their customers to pay
using digital currencies (i.e. Bitcoin) to anonimize the illegal transactions,
protecting customers’ anonymity.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, EncroChat)


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PIERLUIGI PAGANINI

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and
Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he
is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer.
Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security
expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical
Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that
security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security
blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US.
Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some
major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island,
Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security
magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency
and Bitcoin”.




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