3-Year Probe Into Encrypted Phones Led to Seizure of Hundreds of Tons of Drugs
upstart writes:
The announcement underscored the staggering scale of criminality - mainly drugs and arms smuggling and money laundering - that was uncovered as a result of police and prosecutors effectively listening in to criminals using encrypted EncroChat phones.
"It helped to prevent violent attacks, attempted murders, corruption and large-scale drug transports, as well as obtain large-scale information on organised crime," European Union police and judicial cooperation agencies Europol and Eurojust said in a statement.
The French and Dutch investigation gained access to more than 115 million encrypted communications between some 60,000 criminals via servers in the northern French town of Roubaix, prosecutors said at a news conference in the nearby city of Lille.
[...] EncroChat sold phones for around 1,000 euros ($1,094) worldwide and offered subscriptions with global coverage for 1,500 euros ($1,641) per six months. The devices were marketed as offering complete anonymity and were said to be untraceable and easy to erase if a user was arrested.
French law enforcement authorities launched investigations into the company operating EncroChat in 2017. The probe led to a device being installed that was able to evade the phones' encryption and gain access to users' communications.
[...] The FBI and other law enforcement agencies went a step further and created an encrypted service - ANOM - that was marketed to criminals in a global sting that led to the arrest of more than 800 suspects and seizure of more than 32 metric tons (35.2 tons) of drugs, including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.