dopamimetic
Bluelighter
Police monitored a hundred million encrypted messages sent through Encrochat, a network used by career criminals to discuss drug deals, murders, and extortion plots.
Right now, the criminal world is in disarray, their main way of communicating ruptured. Paranoid, some people are going offline, unsure of what devices to trust. Others are trying to cross borders before they are detained, the source close to criminal Encrochat users said. The source said that buying drugs in bulk just got a lot harder.
They added, "Everybody's going to ground."
The messages show how gangs allegedly directed members to gather money from customers, how to launder it safely, and where to hide drugs. In meticulous and timestamped sections, the Encrochat messages lay out alleged crime after crime. "People are fucked," one of the sources who provided the documents to Motherboard said. "People talk about murder, buying kilos, buying guns [...] millions of pills" on the phones, referring to large-scale drug dealing and other crimes.
In the Netherlands alone, "the investigation has so far led to the arrest of more than 100 suspects, the seizure of drugs (more than 8,000 kilo cocaine and 1,200 kilo crystal meth), the dismantling of 19 synthetic drugs labs, the seizure of dozens of (automatic) fire weapons, expensive watches and 25 cars, including vehicles with hidden compartments, and almost EUR 20 million in cash," authorities said in a press release.
Something wasn't right. Starting earlier this year, police kept arresting associates of Mark, a UK-based alleged drug dealer. Mark took the security of his operation seriously, with the gang using code names to discuss business on custom, encrypted phones made by a company called Encrochat. For legal reasons, Motherboard is referring to Mark using a pseudonym.
Because the messages were encrypted on the devices themselves, police couldn't tap the group's phones or intercept messages as authorities normally would. On Encrochat, criminals spoke openly and negotiated their deals in granular detail, with price lists, names of customers, and explicit references to the large quantities of drugs they sold, according to documents obtained by Motherboard from sources in and around the criminal world.
Maybe it was a coincidence, but in the same time frame, police across the UK and Europe busted a wide range of criminals. In mid-June, authorities picked up an alleged member of another drug gang. A few days later, law enforcement seized millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs in Amsterdam. It was as if the police were detaining people from completely unrelated gangs simultaneously.
"[The police] all over it aren't they," the dealer wrote in one of the messages obtained by Motherboard. "My heads still baffled how they got on all my guys."
Unbeknownst to Mark, or the tens of thousands of other alleged Encrochat users, their messages weren't really secure. French authorities had penetrated the Encrochat network, leveraged that access to install a technical tool in what appears to be a mass hacking operation, and had been quietly reading the users' communications for months. Investigators then shared those messages with agencies around Europe.
Read all of it here (vice.com).
Right now, the criminal world is in disarray, their main way of communicating ruptured. Paranoid, some people are going offline, unsure of what devices to trust. Others are trying to cross borders before they are detained, the source close to criminal Encrochat users said. The source said that buying drugs in bulk just got a lot harder.
They added, "Everybody's going to ground."
The messages show how gangs allegedly directed members to gather money from customers, how to launder it safely, and where to hide drugs. In meticulous and timestamped sections, the Encrochat messages lay out alleged crime after crime. "People are fucked," one of the sources who provided the documents to Motherboard said. "People talk about murder, buying kilos, buying guns [...] millions of pills" on the phones, referring to large-scale drug dealing and other crimes.
In the Netherlands alone, "the investigation has so far led to the arrest of more than 100 suspects, the seizure of drugs (more than 8,000 kilo cocaine and 1,200 kilo crystal meth), the dismantling of 19 synthetic drugs labs, the seizure of dozens of (automatic) fire weapons, expensive watches and 25 cars, including vehicles with hidden compartments, and almost EUR 20 million in cash," authorities said in a press release.
Something wasn't right. Starting earlier this year, police kept arresting associates of Mark, a UK-based alleged drug dealer. Mark took the security of his operation seriously, with the gang using code names to discuss business on custom, encrypted phones made by a company called Encrochat. For legal reasons, Motherboard is referring to Mark using a pseudonym.
Because the messages were encrypted on the devices themselves, police couldn't tap the group's phones or intercept messages as authorities normally would. On Encrochat, criminals spoke openly and negotiated their deals in granular detail, with price lists, names of customers, and explicit references to the large quantities of drugs they sold, according to documents obtained by Motherboard from sources in and around the criminal world.
Maybe it was a coincidence, but in the same time frame, police across the UK and Europe busted a wide range of criminals. In mid-June, authorities picked up an alleged member of another drug gang. A few days later, law enforcement seized millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs in Amsterdam. It was as if the police were detaining people from completely unrelated gangs simultaneously.
"[The police] all over it aren't they," the dealer wrote in one of the messages obtained by Motherboard. "My heads still baffled how they got on all my guys."
Unbeknownst to Mark, or the tens of thousands of other alleged Encrochat users, their messages weren't really secure. French authorities had penetrated the Encrochat network, leveraged that access to install a technical tool in what appears to be a mass hacking operation, and had been quietly reading the users' communications for months. Investigators then shared those messages with agencies around Europe.
Read all of it here (vice.com).
"good luck pal"
