The gangland figures murdered in hits ordered on EncroChat: How killings of Salford's 'Mr Big' Paul Massey and mob 'fixer' John Kinsella were called in using encrypted phone network
- The secret mobile system was used by Iceman killer Mark Fellows in his hits
- Paul Massey and John Kinsella were executed in the gun murders
- Drug gangsters Andrew Venna and Matthew Cornwall also used EncroChat app
- Once system was hacked one of UK's most wanted was tracked down in Spain
- Police forces used data to carry out Britain's biggest crime bust yesterday
Secret phone system EncroChat was revealed today to have been used in some of the UK's most notorious murders and crimes – with the underground network the perfect hiding place for the terrifying plots.
The handsets and app – which cost £1,500 to rent for just six months – were cracked by an international police team during a two-month investigation.
But it can now be revealed before the system was compromised it was used in gangland murders and huge drug deals.
Operation Venetic, which details emerged about yesterday, is Britain's biggest ever crime bust, nailing 746 crooked kingpins and foiling hundred of plots.
Every UK police force took part in raids across the country, seizing £54million of dirty cash, two tonnes of drugs and 77 firearms.
Paul Massey (left) and John Kinsella (right) was both assassinated by Mark Fellows, who was helped by Steven Boyle using an EncroChat phone
EncroChat was used on an adapted Android mobile phone to communicate secretly (file pic)
Mark Fellows (left) and Steven Boyle (right) were both jailed for life over the killings of Paul Massey and John Kinsella. The two men used EncroChat to communicate in the plotsEncroChat was used by hitman Mark Fellows to murder 'Mr Big' Paul Massey and John Kinsella, Liverpool Crown Court heard last year.
Fellows, nicknamed Iceman for his cold ruthlessness, was tipped off by accomplice Steven Boyle via the encrypted phone service when Kinsella was coming into range.
When he was questioned about the unusual handset, he flippantly declared 'No one even owns a normal phone these days'.
Andrew Venna (left) and Matthew Cornwall (right) both used EncroChat as part of their huge drug network in Gloucestershire
He executed Massey with an Uzi machine gun outside of his home in Salford in July 2015, hitting him five times on his doorstep.
Three years later mob enforcer and fixer Kinsella was murdered in a hail of bullets.
As he and Boyle were jailed for both killings Mr Justice Davis told him: 'I have never had to deal with a contract killer of your kind before.
A raid carried out on a luxury property in the Home Counties as part of the huge police sting
West Midlands Police took part in raids in Birmingham that netted criminal suspects
In Liverpool a suspect in the raids was brought out in his underwear by armed police
Some of the £54million seized by police acting on data harvested from EncroChat
'There are few judges who have. Just punishment in your case requires you to be kept in prison for the rest of your life.'
Gloucester gangsters Andrew Venna and Matthew Cornwall were also revealed to have used the system in May last year.
Venna and members of his gang were believed to be behind an outbreak of gang warfare in the city which left a number of victims seriously hurt.
He and eight customers and couriers were hit with overwhelming evidence persuaded them to plead guilty to a series of drug supply charges against them.
Venna, was branded Chief Executive of the gang, as he was jailed him for 12 years and nine months while Cornwall got ten years.
Detectives handed data from the compromised EncroChat phone network recently used it track down one of the UK's most wanted criminals.
The man, from Salford in Greater Manchester, was detained in May by Spanish officers at a beachside apartment block, and then extradited to Britain the following month, according to the Times.
Bosses at the National Crime Agency have also said it is also pursuing distributors of the phones, who reportedly included Johnny Swales, a Belfast criminal and former soldier who is known as King Con.
Yesterday's news of Operation Venetic, which spanning the globe, saw scores of raids carried out across the country in a major shift in the battle against drugs, guns and illegal activity.
During the two-month operation officers seized the illegal cash along with firearms including hand grenade and machine guns.
But it was only made possible after the NCA and European forces managed to get inside a formerly secure phone system called EncroChat.
What is the 'EncroChat' smartphone system used by the mafia to move money, drugs and order murders
EncroChat was a secret platform where users were able to communicate privately between specially-designed handsets - often to run drugs, traffick people and even order murders.
These devices, costing £1,500, are usually Android-based smartphones that had their GPS sensors, microphones, and cameras stripped out, encrypted chat apps installed by default to allow people to sent private messages. It is now emerging that criminal syndicates across the world had one - with one in six of the 60,000 users in the UK.
Marketed as the electronic equivalent of two people having a conversation in an empty room, it enabled users to send written messages or make voice calls through an encrypted system.
There were thought to be 60,000 users internationally, including 10,000 in the UK, with prices at £1,500 for a six-month contract.
Investigators say that the platform, which was not in itself illegal, was designed to be secure against unwanted outside access, and in the UK was used purely for criminal purposes. Since the breach, the Encrochat platform has shut down.
According to the Encrochat website, customers had access to features such as self-destructing messages, that deleted from the recipient's device after a certain length of time. There was also panic wipe, where all the data on the device could be deleted by entering a four-digit code from the lock-screen.
The National Crime Agency said the handset could also be wiped remotely.It is a messaging system similar to WhatsApp and only pre-loaded on to special phones which have to be specially bought.
Criminals paid £1,500 for a six-month contract to use them and could send a 'kill code text' which wiped everything on the customised Android handset.
Experts in France and the Netherlands infiltrated the illegal communication network, which helped them understand what crimes gangs were planning, like in TV hit The Wire.
In the show one of the police officers built up cases against crooks by using a device called the Triggerfish, which collected data from their phones.
In the real world, investigators found 60,000 users worldwide and around 10,000 users in the UK alone on EncroChat – the sole use was for coordinating and planning the distribution of drugs, guns, dirty cash, money laundering and plots to kill rival criminals.
It was a treasure trove of evidence as top level criminals could be monitored speaking freely about their operations and plans, thinking their network could never be cracked.
The company EncroChat is shrouded in mystery, but is based in the Netherlands, and says it has addresses there as well as in Turkey and Latin America.
Scotland Yard said yesterday of the 177 people taken into custody during the operation, 99 people have been charged so far.
As thugs chatted away, law enforcement officers were collecting clues in real-time to collect enough evidence to put them behind bars.
The Met alone detained 132 people - including some from the most serious organised crime network in the capital - with over £13.3million in cash seized among machine guns and narcotics.
One of the operations seized £5million in one go – which is the force's largest ever single cash haul.
Many of the arrests were of seemingly-respectable people living luxury lifestyles, but hiding their secret criminal empires.
No comments: