The largest police bust in UK history has seen 746 criminal figures arrested, over 200 murder plots and other criminal conspiracies foiled and £56 million pounds in cash as well as 2 tonnes of drugs seized.
The two month sting operation took places across the world after experts in France and Holland cracked the Encrochat which is a military-grade encrypted communication system used by criminals for the sole purpose of to trade guns and drugs, plot murders and kidnappings and launder money according to the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Encrochat, which is believed to have originated in the Netherlands was found to have over 60,000 users worldwide with 10,000 in the UK alone.
The operations in the UK focused primarily in London where over 130 arrests were made alone and while some arrests included well known, dangerous criminals’ others were supposedly respectable people living in affluent neighbourhoods who kept their criminal enterprise in the shadows.
Other illicit property seized includes 55 high-value cars and 73 luxury watches.
The director of investigations for the NCA Nikki Holland said the breach, which was described by one official as like breaking the World War 2 Enigma code, was like “having an inside person in every top organised crime group in the country”.
It is likely more arrests will take place as investigations continue both in the UK and around the world.
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