Investigation Into Encrypted Phone Network Leads to 6,500 Arrests
Law enforcement in Europe say they’ve arrested over 6,500 suspects after investigators infiltrated an encrypted phone network popular among criminals.
In 2020, Europol helped dismantle(Opens in a new window) EncroChat, a company that offered modified smartphones to help lawbreakers communicate securely over an encrypted network. On Tuesday, the agency offered an update on how it’s been using evidence from the dismantled network to crack down on organized crime groups that relied on EncroChat for their schemes.
“Since the dismantling, investigators managed to intercept, share, and analyze over 115 million criminal conversations, by an estimated number of over 60,000 users,” Europol said(Opens in a new window).
Over the past three years, police in Europe have also arrested 6,558 suspects, 197 of which were “high value targets,” thanks to the evidence recovered from the EncroChat network. In addition, investigators have seized or froze assets totalling at almost €900 million ($986 million). Another 103 tons of cocaine and 163 tons of cannabis were also detained.
It’s an ironic result for users of EncroChat, which was precisely designed to help criminals protect their communications from the police. Europol said shutting the network down in 2020 both helped stop “violent attacks, attempted murders, corruption and large-scale drug transports, as well as obtain large-scale information on organized crime.”
EncroChat offered both modified Android and BlackBerry phones for around €1,000 while offering subscriptions at €1,500 per six months. Along with encrypted communications, the phones included a panic button that could erase all data over the devices.
Police in Europe began investigating the encrypted phone network in
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