EncroChat
Communications network and service provider
Follow EncroChat on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
| 2024 | Australian secure phone provider Ghost was raided by law enforcement. |
| July 2024 | Jason Pusey, a former Gibraltar international footballer, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for coordinating a large-scale drug operation involving cocaine, ketamine, and cannabis. |
| November 2023 | Natalie Mottram, a former police analyst, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for misconduct and unauthorized access of EncroChat information. |
| October 9 2023 | Operation Eternal reached milestone of 942 total arrests and 426 convictions, with combined prison sentences of 3,722 years. Seizures included £19 million in cash, over three tonnes of class A and B drugs, and 49 guns. |
| October 9 2023 | Operation Venetic had led to over 3,100 arrests, 1,240 convictions, and 7,938 years of prison sentences. |
| May 2023 | Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) investigation into Operation Venetic concluded, finding the NCA's actions lawful. |
| May 2023 | European law enforcement conducted 'Operation Eureka', a joint investigation targeting the 'Ndrangheta criminal organization. The operation resulted in 108 arrests in Italy and over 30 arrests in Germany, following a 4-year investigation that involved cracking the encrypted communication platforms EncroChat and SkyEcc. |
| September 2022 | Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) investigation into Operation Venetic began. |
| March 2022 | First murder plot convictions secured against Paul Fontaine and Frankie Sinclair based on EncroChat evidence. |
| 2021 | ANOM secure messenger was revealed to be a law enforcement sting operation. |
| May 21 2021 | Carl Stewart was sentenced to 13 years and 6 months at Liverpool Crown Court for drug trafficking offenses, after being identified through a photo of his hands holding Blue Stilton cheese sent via EncroChat under the alias 'ToffeeForce'. |
| March 2021 | Dutch and Belgian police claimed to have accessed and decrypted Sky ECC's system traffic, leading to numerous arrests. |
| 2020 | Dutch police arrested over 100 suspects and seized more than 8 tonnes of cocaine, 1.2 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine, 19 synthetic drug laboratories, dozens of guns, luxury cars, and approximately €20 million in cash. |
| 2020 | A Europol-supported joint investigation team (JIT) code-named Emma 95 in France and 26Lemont in the Netherlands gathered millions of messages between suspects in real-time. |
| December 22 2020 | Thomas Maher was sentenced to 14 years and 8 months at Liverpool Crown Court for multiple criminal conspiracies involving cocaine smuggling and money laundering using EncroChat phones. |
| September 2020 | Raids in Brighton, Portslade, Kent, and London led to nine arrests linked to Operation Eternal. Police seized 10 kg of Class A drugs and £60,000, with arrests involving conspiracy to supply cocaine. |
| July 2020 | French authorities made undisclosed arrests as part of the EncroChat investigation. |
| July 2020 | EncroChat devices were reported to cost €1,000 (£900) each, with a six-month service contract priced at €1,500 (£1,350), indicating a significant point in the company's pricing and market positioning. |
| July 2020 | Investigative journalist Joseph Cox published an exposé about EncroChat in Vice Motherboard following law enforcement's network infiltration. |
| July 9 2020 | Prominent Irish gang boss Daniel Kinahan reportedly fled his 'safe-haven' of Dubai in response to the EncroChat investigation. |
| June 2020 | Operation Eternal closure of EncroChat network in London, resulting in seizure of £13.4 million in cash, 16 firearms, 500+ ammunition rounds, and 620 kg of Class A drugs. 171 people arrested, with 113 charged (88 for drug supply, 16 for firearms offences). |
| June 2020 | EncroChat had 10,000 users in the UK at the time of the network infiltration by Operation Venetic. |
| June 2020 | The National Crime Agency in the UK completed a major operation resulting in over 2,600 arrests and 1,384 criminal charges linked to EncroChat communications. |
| June 22 2020 | Dutch police discovered a 'torture chamber' in a warehouse near Bergen op Zoom, consisting of seven sound-proofed shipping container cells with torture tools including a dentist's chair, hedge trimmers, scalpels, and pliers. |
| June 22 2020 | In Rotterdam, authorities found police uniforms, stolen vehicles, 25 firearms, and 25 kg of drugs in a property during the EncroChat investigation. |
| June 22 2020 | Cox publicly disclosed an email from EncroChat stating the service was shutting down permanently due to attacks from an organization seemingly originating in the UK. |
| June 13 2020 | EncroChat announced it would cease operations after an unidentified source revealed the successful police infiltration of their encrypted communication network. |
| June 12 2020 | On the night of 12-13 June, EncroChat users received a secret message indicating that the service suspected law enforcement infiltration. |
| May 2020 | Law enforcement disabled the wipe feature on some EncroChat units at a distance. |
| April 10 2020 | The National Gendarmerie signed an agreement with the Dutch Police to form a joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate EncroChat. |
| April 1 2020 | The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) began receiving information about the content of EncroChat messages. |
| March 2020 | Police began infiltrating the EncroChat communications network as part of a Europe-wide investigation into criminal activities. |
| March 26 2020 | The Targeted Equipment Interference (TEI) warrant was granted by the Judicial Commissioner and approved by NCA director-general Dame Lynne Owens. |
| March 25 2020 | The NCA applied to the judiciary for an amendment to scan for wi-fi networks adjacent to infected EncroChat devices. |
| March 24 2020 | NCA Agent J. Wayne filed an Application for a Targeted Equipment Interference Warrant Under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 for TEI warrant 91-TEI-0141-2020. |
| March 15 2020 | The National Gendarmerie formed a special unit to investigate the hacked EncroChat information. |
| January 2020 | A judge in Lille, France authorized the infiltration of EncroChat servers. |
| 2019 | Vincent Ramos, CEO of Phantom Secure, was sentenced to nine years in prison for creating devices to help drug traffickers. |
| 2019 | MPC, a secure mobile phone company created by Scottish criminals James and Barrie Gillespie, was revealed. |
| January 2019 | The investigation into EncroChat accelerated after receiving EU funding. |
| 2018 | FBI announced a takedown of Phantom Secure, revealing the company's provision of secure communications to drug traffickers and criminal organization leaders. |
| May 2018 | High-profile criminals Mark Fellows and Steven Boyle used EncroChat devices during the murder of John Kinsella in Rainhill, England. |
| 2017 | France's National Gendarmerie first discovered the EncroChat encrypted messaging service and related customized phones during operations against organized crime gangs. |
| 2017 | EncroChat becomes popular among criminals as an alternative encrypted communication service. |
| 2016 | EncroChat emerges as a replacement for a previously disabled end-to-end encrypted service after Dutch and Canadian police compromised a competitor's server. |
| December 31 2015 | EncroChat publicly releases Version 115 of their operating system, marking the first public OS release. |
| September 23 2015 | Earliest version of EncroChat website archived by the Wayback Machine. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article EncroChat, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.