Ever since Operation Venetic has been used to lock up many EncroChat users across Europe, there has been plenty of talk about encrypted mobile devices and what EncroChat actually is as a whole.
While there have been plenty of arrests made so far stopping some of the major organised crime gang bosses from across Europe, there are plenty of people caught in the middle of this who could be affected.
Throughout this blog post, we are going to be discussing Operation Venetic at length as well as what EncroChat actually is and whether you may be affected by all of this.
What is EncroChat?
Encrochat is a mobile phone company that gave its users perfectly encrypted communications with one another by providing them with mobile devices with microphones, cameras and GPS systems removed.
While this type of service is not illegal to provide, it naturally attracted the attention of law enforcement and then began the murmurings of criminal activity across their servers.
EncroChat was shut down in 2020 due to Operation Venetic and thus came a close to many of the criminal organisations that were using the service.
The basic idea of EncroChat was to give people secure and encrypted communications with one another without their devices being able to be hacked or intercepted by malicious users over the internet.
What is Operation Venetic?
Operation Venetic was an infiltration of the EncroChat servers in 2020 run by the UK’s National Crime Agency in order to crack down on organised crime in the UK.
This encrypted messaging service was being used by people all across Europe and has been the centrepiece in one of the largest police drug busts in history.
Police uncovered over 20 million messages between different individuals and were able to use this information as evidence in court in order to put a stop to their criminal activities.
There has been some dispute among the defence lawyers of many that perhaps these messages should not be able to be used as evidence. If you would like to read more about this, click here.
What are Encrypted Communications?
Encrypted communication systems, such as EncroChat, offer users complete safety and privacy with end-to-end encryption protecting their messages from outside sources.
While this sounds like an excellent feature to have, what actually is encryption? How can you be sure that your messages are ever fully safe?
Encryption simply involves “scrambling” the messages up as they are sent so that people cannot intercept them and “unscrambling” them once they have been sent so that the original message is displayed to the recipient.
This kind of encryption is even used in many different messaging applications such as WhatsApp which has been included in the app’s offering in order to keep hackers from intercepting messages.
This does, however, also lock out law enforcement from seeing the messages when necessary and requires an extensive decryption process within their legal limits to gain access to them.
Encrypted Mobile Devices
With the EncroChat service, people were entitled to own an entirely encrypted mobile device which is slightly different to that of a normal handheld device.
A normal mobile phone will normally have the ability to encrypt its own data, encrypted phones work slightly differently than this however as they have some additional security features that allow for rapid memory deletions as a safety precaution.
One question that many people have about these kinds of devices is whether they are legal or not and the simple answer is yes, they are completely legal to own and use day-to-day as the user can simply use it for added security on their device.
Despite this, people who own these types of devices are always bound to be listed by the authorities as suspicious because they tend to be used by many criminal organisations, as is in the EncroChat case.
Legal Defence Lawyers
If you are concerned about the recent goings-on when it comes to Operation Venetic and the EncroChat bust, then we recommend that you seek legal advice as soon as possible.
The team here at EncroChat Solicitors are more than happy to provide you with a free consultation to answer any questions or queries you may have in terms of EncroChat legal issues.
Everyone is entitled to legal defence lawyers, so if you are worried about being questioned for your activity on the EncroChat servers, then we can help you build a case to defend yourself against these allegations.
We have many years of experience in criminal defence so all of our clients can be assured that we will be able to help in any way that we can for a price that you can afford.
We aim to deliver high-quality results at an efficient cost so that anyone can have the basic necessities of a defence lawyer when on trial for the EncroChat issues. Read more about us here.
Conclusion
To conclude, the legal issues with EncroChat have been troubling thousands of people across Europe and many of them have not been able to get the legal defence to help them through their allegations.
When EncroChat was shut down, it had around 60,000 people signed up for the program showing the magnitude of this case and how truly damning this could be to the lives of many caught in the crossfire.
If you need legal advice or would like to enlist the help of one of the members of our team to tackle your defence case, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us at 0330 133 6541 and we will be happy to assist you in any way we can.
