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Officials during a raid in the Bremen clan milieu (archive picture).
Photo: - / picture alliance / dpa
Investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) are carrying out a major raid against organized crime in northern Germany.
In the morning, investigators on behalf of the Hamburg public prosecutor's office searched the homes and business premises of suspects in Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg.
Several men were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking and drug trafficking.
According to SPIEGEL information, the proceedings are directed against a criminal network that is said to be responsible for importing tons of cocaine through the port of Hamburg.
The group, which is dominated by Kurds, is said to have contacts with members of the D. family from Bremen, who belong to the infamous Miri clan.
"WhatsApp for gangsters"
According to SPIEGEL information, the BKA investigations with the internal code name "Festspiele", which have been undercover for a long time, are the most important proceedings of a special unit in the Department of Serious and Organized Crime.
For months officials at the Wiesbaden BKA headquarters have been evaluating a huge data set.
These are millions of chat messages from an Encrochat server.
For many years, the obscure company based in the Netherlands offered the underworld encryption software that could not be penetrated by investigators.
For a unit price of several thousand euros, the company sold specially prepared cell phones that were equipped with an encrypted chat program.
Criminologists called the service, which has since been discontinued, "WhatsApp for gangsters".
The company had around 60,000 customers across Europe.
Torture chambers and cocaine
In the spring, French authorities managed to infiltrate an enchrochat server.
Officials of an international team of investigators were then able to read the secret chat traffic of tens of thousands of criminals for a few months.
In July, the largest raids against organized crime in recent history took place in several EU countries.
In England alone, authorities arrested nearly 750 people and seized tons of drugs.
Torture chambers, which were equipped with dental chairs and were discovered in the Netherlands, also made headlines.
Criminals apparently wanted to torture their rivals in the converted sea containers.
The investigators only learned that such facilities existed from the suspects' Encrochat communication.
Hundreds of new procedures
A few months ago, the BKA also received access to the Encrochat messages.
According to the police, the amount of data is so large that German authorities will be busy evaluating the information and the subsequent prosecution for years to come.
The BKA shared the data with several state police.
"The offenders felt completely protected in the chats and spoke very openly about their business, often including photos," says an experienced official.
In the already chronically understaffed organized crime departments, however, there is a lack of staff to deal quickly with all possible crimes.
"The colleagues in the countries have to prioritize," said the official.
In addition to hundreds of new proceedings nationwide that must be initiated on the basis of the data, the Encrochat material also helps in numerous older investigative proceedings, according to SPIEGEL information.
"For the first time we can get to the people behind us," says a police officer.
"The material is a blessing - and because of its size, it is also a curse," said the official.
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