Cracking apps: are crimefighters going too far to bring down cartels?

Deciphering encryption is said to have upended a vast drug network, but some say the method should worry us all

Law enforcement sources have described it as an embarrassment of riches, a treasure trove that led to raids across Europe and in Dubai this week that were said to have brought down a super-cartel controlling a third of the European cocaine trade.

It was as if we were sitting at the table with the criminals," the executive director of Europol, Catherine De Bolle, said in a recent interview.