400 criminals jailed as Scotland Yard target shady messaging app

HUNDREDS of criminals including gang bosses have been jailed after police cracked encrypted messages.

- Harry Stedman

The clampdown on EncroChat since March 2020 had put away 426 people for a total of 3,722 years, said the Metropolitan Police. Nationally, more than 1,200 have been jailed.

Led by the National Crime Agency, the blitz used data taken from the app to identify criminals, solve murders and crack down on the drug trade.

Commander Paul Brogden, head of specialist crime at the Metropolitan Police, said it was "the most significant operation targeting organised crime figures in the Met's history".

EncroChat was a secret operating system accessed by a secure password on Android phones, with each user of the platform given a unique name to identify them.

Murder

The handsets, which cost £1,500, could only communicate with other EncroChat devices and could have all their data wiped if handed over to the authorities.