Index – Foreign – Invented for criminals, hundreds of thousands used the secret messaging platform



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Approximately 70,000 European and 170,000 non-EU users exchanged messages on an encrypted communication platform called Sky ECC, which was created specifically for criminals. Europol has now trapped the courier team.

Belgian, Dutch and French authorities have been monitoring the flow of information between users since mid-February, giving access to hundreds of millions of messages from criminals by cracking the program’s encrypted codes, Europol said.

As a result of coordinated data collection, critical information on more than a hundred large-scale planned crimes was obtained, preventing them.

Information obtained from the Sky ECC network provides information on planned crime preparations in various EU Member States and internationally.

Europol also recalled that users switched to Sky ECC following the July 2020 disconnection from the encrypted EncroChat phone network, which was used to plan attacks, launder money and sell drugs.

Last year’s action thwarted a series of violent crimes and assassination attempts, as well as large-scale drug shipments. Some of the messages were about violent crimes planned in the near future, so immediate action was needed, Europol said.



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