"I'm in Holland, do you have the weed?"
Make a good price, I put on you a lot of kilos.
“Between Jojoboz and Sublimeblade, we talk cash.
Money, delivery dates and quantity of drugs are mentioned without the usual codewords of traffickers.
"Please find 10 kg of 42 (a type of grass) and 10 kg shop", insists Sublimeblade on April 7, 2020 while the shortage awaits its traffic based in the suburbs of Valenciennes (North).
"Risky 20 kg for you brother", worries his Dutch supplier.
"No problem, border at night," retorts the dealer from the North.
For weeks now, the two thugs have become accustomed to these no-frills exchanges, convinced that they are protected behind the encryption of their EncroChat phones.
For 1000 euros to purchase then 300 euros of subscription per month, the promise offered by this Dutch operator is indeed attractive for criminals: the telephone claims to be inviolable.
The Dutch authorities are the first to discover this “dealers' WhatsApp” during investigations in the port of Rotterdam, the gateway for cocaine to Europe.
In November 2018, the Dutch company's servers were located in Roubaix (Nord) and the Lille public prosecutor's office opened an investigation.
Thanks to secret-defense techniques, the gendarmes of the center for the fight against digital crime (C3N) hack the system and obtain a live copy of all the messages passing through EncroChat's servers.
A real "invitation to the table of big traffickers" assures a close friend of the investigation.
In France, 500 geolocated users, 70 investigations in progress
So as not to compromise their infiltration, only the most urgent operations - in particular to prevent an account settlement in Perpignan - are triggered.
On June 13, 2020, a message from the company fell on the 60,000 EncroChat phones: “One or more government entities have launched an attack to compromise
(Editor's note: our phones)
.
We can no longer guarantee its security.
We recommend that you turn them off and dispose of them immediately.
“Too late for many traffickers: the gendarmes have already collected 120 million of their messages.
In France, 500 users have been geolocated and more than 70 investigations have already been opened.
When he abandons his phone, Sublimeblade is no longer a stranger to the Research Section (SR) of Lille.
On April 1, 2020, convinced that he was protected by the encryption of his device, he sent via EncroChat a photo of his hand holding narcotics.
The quality of the image allowed the experts of the gendarmerie to zoom in on his fingers in order to take his fingerprints.
Stuck up and well known to the authorities, YZ is confused.
The French gendarmerie managed to discretely break the secure encryption of the EncroChat network ./YouTube
Until the deactivation of EncroChat, investigators read dozens of live messages in which he complains of his "business blocked in Madrid", negotiates the purchase of weed, threatens to "lift" one of his debtors.
Above all, they note that he organizes around thirty “go-fasts” in the Netherlands and Spain.
On January 8, five YZ accomplices were arrested by the GIGN on their return from Spain with more than 40 kg of cannabis.
Three other suspects are arrested in the red brick houses of the mining towns of Raismes (North): more than 60 weapons, 100,000 euros in cash, narcotics and 400 cannabis plants are seized ... YZ, on the run during the arrests, a was arrested on January 31 with false papers at the Spanish border.
All are indicted.
Trafficking networks from around the world identified
The fall of this large-scale network illustrates the considerable damage caused over the past six months to drug trafficking by the EncroChat hack.
"The results obtained in terms of seizures of narcotics, weapons and criminal assets are particularly significant", underlines Carole Etienne, the prosecutor of Lille.
In fact, almost every month, dealers fall.
In August, discreet traffickers from Rouen were arrested with 65 kg of heroin.
Two months later, “stupid logisticians” were arrested with 800 kg of resin in Perpignan.
Just before Christmas, a trafficker from Hayange (Moselle) in business with Dutch wholesalers is surprised with 42 kg of heroin and 4 kg of cocaine… In recent days, the SR of Reims and the PJ of Nancy have seized 600 kg of cannabis and challenged one "of the biggest teams in the sector" ...
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
"Piracy has made it possible to discover the international scope of certain traffickers, to identify entire networks," said someone close to the matter.
This is an incredible windfall which must still be dealt with by more traditional investigations, surveillance, geolocation… ”According to our information, at least fifteen complex investigations are still underway, in particular entrusted to the Anti-Narcotic Office (OFAST),
But France is only the tip of the iceberg.
As soon as the intrusion into the operator's servers, the police provided their colleagues around the world with information.
The agents of the DEA - the American anti-drug agency - thus report, in a February 2020 report which leaked on the Internet, that certain barons of the dreaded Mexican cartel of Sinaloa, the main importer of cocaine in the United States, used the EncroChat phones.
Suspected of importing 45 tonnes of cocaine into Europe
Mexicans sent to the Netherlands to cook methamphetamine for Dutch gangs were also recently arrested in the heart of the Kingdom, where users were the most numerous.
The police also discovered there, thanks to the digital infiltration of the gendarmes, a container fitted out as a torture chamber or a laboratory which employed Colombians to produce "150 to 200 kg of cocaine per day".
"More than 1000 arrests in the world result from the work of French cyber-investigators", supports a senior official.
At European level alone, the Lille public prosecutor's office thus received "230 requests for mutual assistance".
One of the most spectacular operations resulted in the arrest of 45 people in Brazil, the Netherlands, Spain and Dubai.
They are suspected of importing 45 tonnes of cocaine into Europe.
Thanks to this investigation, the authorities seized 15 million euros in cash as well as 170 properties, 70 luxury vehicles and 37 planes ...
According to our information, other conversations hacked by the gendarmes allowed the Belgian federal prosecutor's office to carry out, at the end of October, a record seizure of more than 11 tonnes of cocaine in the port of Antwerp.
Market value: 450 million euros.
And all over the world, dozens of former EncroChat users continue to sleep badly ...
