LAW chiefs have again dashed gangsters’ hopes of overturning so-called Encrochat convictions.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has defeated a legal challenge which threatened to undermine arrests made using evidence from the messaging system.
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The crime-fighting body had faced claims that they improperly obtained warrants to access data from the encrypted mobile phone network.
The system, which was widely used by criminals to smuggle drugs and guns into and around the UK, was penetrated in 2020 and messages were intercepted and decoded.
The inquiry, called Operation Venetic, has seen several of Scotland’s most senior organised crime figures convicted because of evidence from Encrochat.
They include Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson who last month admitted masterminding a £100 million plot to smuggle nearly a tonne of cocaine from South America to Scotland hidden in a cargo of bananas.
A lawsuit, brought on behalf of 11 people arrested as a result of Encrochat data, claimed NCA officers had misled the judge who granted the warrants.
The claim was rejected by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) last year and that decision has now been upheld this week by senior judges at the Court of Appeal in London.
ENCROCHAT EXPLAINED
BY GRAHAM MANN
THE Encrochat network favoured by criminals was one of the largest encrypted communications services in the world.
Around 60,000 people across Europe used it, with around 10,000 of those users being from the UK.
Mystery continues to surround the people who made and supplied the handsets to hoods eager to keep their activities off the radar.
But the users came unstuck when French law enforcement cracked the system using software they have kept a closely guarded secret.
We told last week how a leading crimebuster said the takedown of Encrochat phones gave Scots cops the upper hand – and “turbo-boosted” their fight against gangsters.
Miles Bonfield, deputy director of the National Crime Agency, hailed the impact of Operation Venetic, a hi-tech blitz that unearthed the activities of hundreds of hoods.
He said: “It made a real difference to turbo-boosting some investigations that were already running and giving them the vital insight and evidential assistance they needed to prove their heinous criminality.”
A digital forensics expert told The Iceman’s trial the vast data haul gathered from an EncroChat sting was “the most information ever seen” in any single Police Scotland probe.
Detective Constable Paul Graham revealed the scale of the messages harvested by French and Dutch authorities as he gave evidence at the High Court in Glasgow.
The info gathered from the encrypted devices formed a key part of Operation Pepperoni which ultimately triggered the downfall of Stevenson and his gang.
The 46-year-old told jurors he has been part of Police Scotland’s Cyber Crime Unit for a decade and has 24 years’ experience in the force.
He was asked by Advocate Depute Alex Prentice KC about how the force managed the haul provided via Europol and the National Crime Agency (NCA) after French law enforcement infiltrated the encrypted device network in 2020.
He said: “It was the most information in any single inquiry Police Scotland has ever seen.
“We had to find a way to get that into the system to be able to search by the appropriate means.”
In a written ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Lord Justice Dingemans and Lady Justice Laing commented.
She said: “We do not consider that it is arguable the NCA had an improper purpose in seeking the authority of a warrant for the conduct described in the application for the warrant.”
A ruling in favour of the claimants could have opened the floodgates to a wave of challenges to criminal proceedings brought using Encrochat evidence.
Messages extracted from the EncroChat data showed Stevenson, using the handle Elusiveale, discussed the importation of kilo blocks of cocaine with his associates.
The 59-year-old, from Rutherglen, near Glasgow, is due to be sentenced next month.
Others convicted using evidence from Encrochat include drug cartel boss James White, who is estimated to have made more than £126 million from his life of crime.
