Encrochat and Sky ECC led to 200 arrests in Sweden
Hacked encrypted messaging services have led to over 200 arrests in Sweden. Research & Progress reveals how police exploited gang communications.
How police cracked gangs' encrypted communications
On an evening in June 2019, 24 men stormed the nightclub F12 in Stockholm, assaulted security guards and forced their way inside. A week earlier, members of the criminal Södertälje network had been refused entry. Abraham Aho, regarded as a leader of the network's older faction, was sentenced a year later for violent rioting.
Aho had been serving a prison sentence since 2014 for murder, complicity in murder in two cases, kidnapping and unlawful coercion. He was conditionally released in September 2018. During his time in prison, a younger faction in Södertälje had grown stronger, and an internal power struggle took shape with car bombings and other violent incidents as a result.
Encrypted contacts between criminal networks
When Aho learned that the younger faction had emptied his weapons cache, he turned to the encryption service Encrochat. Through the service, he contacted the user "Dedicatedwhale" – an alias that police link to a leader within the so-called Västerås mafia. The man from Västerås offered people and weapons, but Aho wanted only weapons.
Both were charged in a major case at Södertälje District Court. The charges concerned both the car bombing and drug smuggling. In July, Aho was sentenced to five years and two months' imprisonment for serious drug offences. The man from Västerås received eleven years' imprisonment for complicity in attempted murder and serious drug offences, but was acquitted of the car bombing.
"Faster and larger business operations"
Crime commissioner Gunnar Appelgren, who has long worked against organised crime in Sweden, describes the environment as a duck pond where players exploit each other's contacts when purchasing narcotics and weapons.
– They have developed that side so that they have more and faster contacts today than 10–15 years ago, says Appelgren.
He points out that encrypted phones have not only increased the opportunity to make new contacts, particularly abroad, but also changed business logic.
– If you can communicate securely, you can send pictures of goods and receipts instead of meeting, and then you get greater momentum – business operations can become faster and larger.
French-Dutch operation cracked Encrochat
Criminals in Sweden and the rest of Europe long operated under the assumption that encrypted services such as Encrochat and Sky ECC protected their communications. In spring 2020, French and Dutch police found a method to access messages in Encrochat. A year later, they also cracked Sky ECC.
Information from Encrochat has so far led to 1,800 arrests and 1,500 investigations in several European countries. Based on communications via Sky ECC, police seized 28 tonnes of narcotics and arrested 80 people in Belgium and the Netherlands, with a further 400 investigations into criminal groups launched.
In Sweden, Encrochat information resulted in just over 200 people being arrested and over 500 suspected of crimes, according to Research & Progress. Stockholm police investigations alone led to 125 sentenced years of imprisonment.
FBI's secret app Anom exposed Swedish gang crime
In June 2021, Europol presented another breakthrough: Operation Trojan Shield, built around the encrypted service Anom. The app had been created by the FBI and sold into the criminal world, while communications were copied in real time to the FBI, which then shared the material with police in other countries.
Of the 800 arrests made in the days before Europol's press conference, Swedish police were responsible for 155. Of the 12,000 Anom accounts that police monitored, Sweden had access to 1,600 and selected 600 as particularly interesting.
Trojan Shield is described as the largest police operation ever against organised crime. In addition to the arrests, the operation led to the seizure of eight tonnes of cocaine, 22 tonnes of cannabis, two tonnes of synthetic drugs, 250 weapons, 55 luxury cars and more than 48 million dollars in cryptocurrency.
Research on networks' weak points
Chat material from the encrypted services is not only legally useful – it also provides new knowledge about how criminal networks are structured and connected to each other. The Södertälje network's contacts with Västerås and Abraham Aho's stay in Spain are one such example.
Daniel Vesterhav, head of the Council for Crime Prevention's unit for research into economic and organised crime, explains the value of that knowledge.
– By understanding how these networks function, one can also find weak links where preventative and crime-fighting measures can be deployed. The more one knows, the easier it is also to carry out root cause analyses.
The Council for Crime Prevention was tasked by the government in December 2019 to produce a new survey of the Swedish narcotics market – a follow-up to three reports published between 2005 and 2007. The assignment includes illuminating the organisation of markets and their players. The researchers do not have direct access to material from Encrochat but interview people who do. The report was expected to be completed in September.
Source: Forskning & Framsteg