German police have arrested more than 750 people and seized a large consignment of weapons and drugs after infiltrating a communications service used by detainees.
The Federal Bureau of Crimes BKA said the arrests were made by police who cracked down on encryption used by the EncroChat service, which provided a secure instant messaging service used by traffickers.
French and Dutch investigators infiltrated the platform, which last year turned out to have 60,000 users worldwide.
EncroChat, now closed, advised its users to throw away their mobile phones in June last year after realizing it had been tapped by authorities.
BKA said it had received data on hundreds of thousands of EncroChat conversations in April 2020 and had been able to identify thousands of users.
As a result of the operation, authorities seized about 3.2 tonnes of cannabis and hundreds of kilograms of synthetic drugs and cocaine. The BKA reported that 310 firearms and over 12,000 bullets were seized.
