The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has made 746 arrests and dismantled dozens of organized crime groups after intercepting millions of encrypted text messages, BBC reports. The messages were sent through EncroChat, a subscription-based phone system popular with professional criminals. The NCA said at a press conference on Thursday that the operation has had “the greatest impact on organized crime gangs it has ever seen. “
European law enforcement agencies appear to have been monitoring these conversations for months. French police first hacked the network, deploying a “technical device” to penetrate EncroChat’s communications after discovering that some of its servers were hosted in the country. Authorities deciphered EncroChat’s encryption code in March and began receiving data in April.
According to a Motherboard Police officers reportedly accessed conversations, which participants believed to be safe and private, about a wide variety of crimes, including drug operations and money laundering schemes.
EncroChat sold custom Android phones with the removed GPS, camera and microphone functionality. They were loaded with encrypted messaging apps, as well as a secure secondary operating system (in addition to Android). The phones also came with a self-destruct feature that erased the device if you entered a PIN.
The service had clients in 140 countries. While it was billed as a legitimate platform, anonymous sources said Motherboard that was widely used among criminal groups, including drug trafficking organizations, cartels, and gangs, as well as hitmen and murderers.
EncroChat did not notice that their devices had been breached until May after some users noticed that the wipe function was not working. After trying and failing to restore features and monitoring malware, EncroChat cut its SIM service and shut down the network, advising clients to remove their devices.
Police have warned that more arrests will come.
“This is just the beginning,” Dame Cressida Dick, commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, said at the conference. “We will disrupt organized criminal networks as a result of these operations for weeks and months and possibly years to come.”
According to Motherboard’According to sources, “the criminal world is in disorder”, with some users throwing away their phones, some completely disconnected and others trying to flee their countries.
