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The US Department of Justice announced the indictment against the CEO of a Canadian-based encrypted communications company and a former associate of his with facilitating international drug smuggling.
The ministry clarified that the two indictments against Sky Global president Jean-Francois Epp and Thomas Herdman, a former senior official in Sky Global’s equipment distribution service, were issued on Friday. Authorities also issued two arrest warrants for the two men.
Acting United States Attorney General Randy Grossman said: “In the indictment, it was claimed that Sky Global had made hundreds of millions of dollars by providing a service that allowed criminal networks around the world to conceal their international activities from smuggling drugs into law enforcement agencies. “
The indictment stated that “Sky Global’s devices are specifically designed to prevent law enforcement agencies from actively monitoring communications between members of international criminal organizations involved in drug smuggling and money laundering.”
The prosecution estimates that the number of Sky Global devices in the world is at least seventy thousand.
The indictment comes after Europe’s police announced Wednesday the arrest of at least 80 people and the carrying out of hundreds of raids in two countries following the banning of the encrypted telephone communications network “Sky IC”, a service provided by “Sky Global”. “, used by groups involved in organized crime.
Police in Belgium, the Netherlands and France said they had infiltrated the Sky IC network, allowing them to access “secretly” without the suspects knowing the communications they were making with devices specially designed to plan drug deals and assassinations.
In France, the Paris Public Ministry announced that the judicial authorities were able to identify some two thousand users of the “Sky IC” network, which “allowed the initiation of (judicial) proceedings in the context of large-scale drug smuggling and attacks against people “.
The Public Ministry stated that the network “appears to be used almost exclusively by active criminals on a large scale.”
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