Thousands arrested since crime chat network cracked

MORE than 6,500 people have been arrested following the 2020 dismantling of EncroChat, an encrypted communications tool used by organized crime, Europol said on Tuesday.

Close to 200 of the arrests were “highvalue targets,” said the organization that assists EU members in international investigations, adding that nearly 900 million euros ($983 million) of criminal funds had been seized or frozen.

French and Dutch police announced in July 2020 that they had shut down the encrypted phone network used by organized crime groups across Europe for assassination attempts and major drug deals.

The move allowed police to read many millions of messages by suspected criminals, Europol said in Tuesday’s first review of the operation against customers of EncroChat, which sold customized encrypted phones.

Since 2020, investigators had managed to intercept, share and analyze over 115 million criminal conversa- tions, by an estimated number of over 60,000 users, the report said.

The intercepted calls included conversations about planned violent attacks, attempted murders, corruption and large-scale drug shipments, it said.

“EncroChat phones were presented as guaranteeing perfect anonymity, discretion and no traceability to users,” Europol said.

The devices had functions intended to ensure the automatic deletion of messages, and all data on the device. AFP ter the war,” he told the media outlets, which are all owned by Germany’s biggest publisher, Axel Springer. The focus now should be on a ceasefire and negotiations, and participants needed to come to the table, he said.

Inviting someone for talks and then telling them “I am going to arrest you, is not the best idea,” he added. Despite some initial successes for Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Orban said he considered a military victory for Ukraine to be “impossible.”

“The problem is that the Ukrainians will run out of soldiers earlier than the Russians,” he said. AFP

Trump heard discussing secret docus on tape

FORMER US president Donald Trump can be heard discussing secret documents he had apparently held on to and acknowledging he had not declassified them in an audio recording aired by CNN.

The two-minute recording comes from an interview Trump gave at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club in July 2021 for people working on a memoir by his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Parts of a transcript of the recording were cited as evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s 49-page indictment of Trump on charges he had mishandled classified documents after leaving office.

The audio file played by CNN late Monday, and also obtained by ABC and CBS, includes a moment when Trump seems to indicate he is holding a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran.

“These are the papers,” Trump says in the recording, a quote that was not included in the indictment.

He also refers to something as “highly confidential” and “this is secret information” as he seems to be showing something to the others in the room.

“This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump continues, before noting that the document remained classified.

“You see, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know,” he says.

“Now we have a problem,” one of his staff responds. AFP