One of the main alleged leaders of the global encrypted communications network EncroChat, widely used by organized crime, in particular drug traffickers and sponsors and perpetrators of assassinations, has been indicted, the Lille prosecutor's office announced on Monday.
This person was identified in the Dominican Republic and arrested by local authorities in May 2022, Lille public prosecutor Carole Étienne said in a press release.
“Under house arrest throughout the extradition procedure
,” the individual
“was handed over to France on February 2
,” she added, emphasizing
“international cooperation
. ”
The suspect, wanted under an arrest warrant issued on July 6, 2021, was indicted for sixteen counts including
“provision of a means of cryptology not exclusively ensuring authentication functions”
,
“complicity illegal importation of narcotic products”
and
“criminal association”
.
He was placed in pre-trial detention in France.
A large-scale European survey
The dismantling in 2020 of the global encrypted communications network EncroChat constituted
“a turning point”
in the fight against organized crime, according to investigators.
In June 2023, during a press conference, the European police cooperation agencies, Europol, and judicial cooperation agencies, Eurojust, as well as the French and Dutch prosecutors indicated that 6,658 people had been arrested, including 197 “
high value targets”
and that nearly 900 million euros of criminal assets had been seized or frozen.
The investigation into this network, which promised criminal groups an absolute absence of traceability, was launched in 2018 in Lille after the location of EncroChat servers in Roubaix.
The dismantling of EncroChat was announced in July 2020 by the French and Dutch judicial and police authorities, after the network detected, on June 13, 2020, that it had been infiltrated.
EncroChat sold fully encrypted phones for around 1,000 euros, without a camera, microphone, GPS or USB port, with a
“panic pin code”
option allowing quick deletion.
Enough to bring in, in three years,
“around 200 million euros for the group which set it up”
, according to Europol.