https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3aza95/how-police-took-over-encrochat-hacked
By Joseph Cox
Vice.com
July 2, 2020
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."
[...]
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