“The cracking of a previously-unbreakable encrypted messaging service popular with criminals involved in drug trafficking and organised crime delivered a major victory for the justice system on Tuesday,” writes the Brussels Times, in a story shared by DI4BL0S:
The cracking of the expensive messaging app, called “Sky ECC,” was what allowed over 1,500 police officers across Belgium to be simultaneously deployed in at least 200 raids, many of which were centred around Antwerp and involved special forces. Investigators succeeded in cracking Sky ECC at the end of last year, according to reporting by De Standaard, and as a result were able to sort through thousands of messages major criminals were sending each other over the course of a month. Information gained from those conversations is what led to Tuesday’s historic operation, two years in the making.
Sky ECC became popular with drug criminals after its successor Encrochat was cracked in 2020 by French and Dutch investigators, who were able to intercept over 100 million messages sent via the app. That led to over a hundred suspects being arrested in the Netherlands, uncovering a network of laboratories where crystal meth and other drugs were being produced and allowing police to seize 8,000 kilos of cocaine and almost €20 million….
In a press conference by Belgium’s federal public prosector’s office on Tuesday afternoon, authorities stated that 17 tonnes of cocaine and €1.2 million were seized, and that 48 suspects were arrested.
Critics of Sky ECC “say more than 90% of its customers are criminals,” according to the Brussels Times. Days later America’s Justice Department indicted the CEO of Sky Global “for allegedly selling their devices to help international drug traffickers avoid law enforcement,” reports Vice. They call it “only the second time the DOJ has filed charges against an encrypted phone company, and signals that the DOJ will continue to prosecute the heads and associates of companies that they say cater deliberately to facilitating criminal acts.”
Earlier the Brussels Times had quoted the app’s makers statement that they “strongly believe that privacy is a fundamental human right.”
The newspaper also reported that Sky ECC calls itself “the world’s most secure messaging app” — and “had previously said ‘hacking is impossible'” — though in fact investigators have already decrypted almost half a billion messages.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot