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EncroChat
EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider that offered modified smartphones allowing encrypted communication among subscribers. It was used primarily by organised crime members to plan criminal activities.
Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police investigation.
The service had around 60,000 subscribers at the time of its closure. In the UK the National Crime Agency led an operation resulting in over 2,600 arrests and 1,384 criminal charges.
EncroChat handsets emerged in 2016 as a replacement for a previously disabled end-to-end encrypted service. The company had revealed on 31 December 2015 the Version 115 of EncroChat OS, which appears to be the first public release of its operating system.
According to a May 2019 report by the Gloucester Citizen, EncroChat was originally developed for "celebrities who feared their phone conversations were being hacked". In the 2015 murder of English mobster Paul Massey, the killers used a similar service providing encrypted BlackBerry phones based on PGP. After the Dutch and Canadian police compromised its server in 2016, EncroChat turned into a popular alternative among criminals for its security-oriented services in 2017–2018.
The founders and owners of EncroChat are not known. According to Dutch journalist Jan Meeus, a Dutch organised crime gang was involved and financed the developers.
Through a marketing strategy of "relentless online advertising", EncroChat rapidly expanded during its four and a half years of existence, benefiting from the closure of its competitors Amsterdam-based PGP Safe (customised BlackBerry) and Ennetcom. The network eventually reached an estimated 60,000 total subscribers at the time of its closure in June 2020. According to the French National Gendarmerie, 90% of subscribers were criminals, and the British National Crime Agency (NCA) said it found no evidence of non-criminals using it.
EncroChat first came to the attention of the media when it was revealed that high-profile criminals Mark Fellows and Steven Boyle had been using the encrypted devices to communicate during the May 2018 gangland murder of John Kinsella in Rainhill, England. The service resurfaced in the media during the summer of 2020 after law enforcement agencies announced that they had infiltrated the encrypted network and investigative journalist Joseph Cox, who had been reviewing EncroChat for months, published an exposé in Vice Motherboard.
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EncroChat
EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider that offered modified smartphones allowing encrypted communication among subscribers. It was used primarily by organised crime members to plan criminal activities.
Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police investigation.
The service had around 60,000 subscribers at the time of its closure. In the UK the National Crime Agency led an operation resulting in over 2,600 arrests and 1,384 criminal charges.
EncroChat handsets emerged in 2016 as a replacement for a previously disabled end-to-end encrypted service. The company had revealed on 31 December 2015 the Version 115 of EncroChat OS, which appears to be the first public release of its operating system.
According to a May 2019 report by the Gloucester Citizen, EncroChat was originally developed for "celebrities who feared their phone conversations were being hacked". In the 2015 murder of English mobster Paul Massey, the killers used a similar service providing encrypted BlackBerry phones based on PGP. After the Dutch and Canadian police compromised its server in 2016, EncroChat turned into a popular alternative among criminals for its security-oriented services in 2017–2018.
The founders and owners of EncroChat are not known. According to Dutch journalist Jan Meeus, a Dutch organised crime gang was involved and financed the developers.
Through a marketing strategy of "relentless online advertising", EncroChat rapidly expanded during its four and a half years of existence, benefiting from the closure of its competitors Amsterdam-based PGP Safe (customised BlackBerry) and Ennetcom. The network eventually reached an estimated 60,000 total subscribers at the time of its closure in June 2020. According to the French National Gendarmerie, 90% of subscribers were criminals, and the British National Crime Agency (NCA) said it found no evidence of non-criminals using it.
EncroChat first came to the attention of the media when it was revealed that high-profile criminals Mark Fellows and Steven Boyle had been using the encrypted devices to communicate during the May 2018 gangland murder of John Kinsella in Rainhill, England. The service resurfaced in the media during the summer of 2020 after law enforcement agencies announced that they had infiltrated the encrypted network and investigative journalist Joseph Cox, who had been reviewing EncroChat for months, published an exposé in Vice Motherboard.