Police in several European countries conducted a large-scale operation, arresting over 800 people who have seized several tons of drugs and tens of millions of dollars and weapons. To reach them managed after law enforcement agencies have deciphered the secret of chat used by the criminal community.Last Friday, the UK National Agency for combating crime (NCA) has announced the largest-ever operation to curb the activities of organized crime. Operation called Venetic is conducted jointly by law enforcement agencies of several European countries and the organization of Europol. At present already arrested more than 800 gang members in the UK, Norway, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, confiscated dozens of weapons, tons of drugs, large sums of money, dozens of expensive cars, watches, etc., According to police estimates, thanks to this operation, they also managed to prevent the murders of about 200 people, which was commissioned by competing factions.A guarantee of anonimnosti it all began in 2016, when the law enforcement agencies of Britain, France and the Netherlands began to work together to develop criminal group which was engaged in Europe, trafficking in arms and drugs, laundering money along the way, and ruthlessly eliminating the competition. To identify criminals, to establish their contacts and listen to phone conversations at first, did not work. After crime scenes or during arrests, the police began to discover similar phones, it became clear the reason for the elusiveness of the perpetrators.With these devices it was impossible to obtain any information about the user, it has been safely encrypted. Using this connection, the criminals talked quietly, not fearing that the police will compute or will have access to data on the phone.Phones with the service encrypted connection Encrochat offered to customers of the same name by the Dutch company, which did not advertise the address, but colorfully advertised their goods and ensured absolute anonymity. At the moment the company ceased its activities. Her website is inactive. Criminal charges against its owners do not apply. Details the police did not disclose.To install the application Encrochat used Blackberry devices or smartphones with Android. After installing the application the device can work with two operating systems: one conventional, the second is a hidden, encrypted connection. Gadgets with Encrochat removed the camera, microphone, USB port and GPS receiver, so they cannot be tracked.Users can make VoIP calls, chat, encrypted chat, secure from hacking and decrypting data. In addition ��wow, users were given a PIN with which you can instantly destroy all messages stored on the device when attempting unauthorized penetration or, for example, at the unplanned meeting with the police. According to online magazine Motherboard, making own investigation on one of their pages, now also inactive, Encrochat reported that communication through this service the level of protection “comparable to a conversation between two people in an empty room”.Of course, this handy device was very popular in the underworld. You can buy it through intermediaries, which, as mentioned on not existing now the website Encrochat were in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Madrid and Dubai. The cost of the phone was comparable to the price of the flagship smartphone known manufacturers around £900; if monthly fee is £3 thousand a year.In an encrypted chat, the criminals agreed about meetings and transactions, ordered murder, assault, delivery of drugs and weapons, were traded and were just talking. As it was established during the investigation, the world uses about 60 thousand phones with Encrochat, including about 10 million in the UK.And chat just otkryvalka March this year law enforcement bodies of France still managed to cope with Encrochat. The details of this were not disclosed. The police only reports that used a “technical device”, which allowed to get access to hundreds of millions of encrypted messages and images. In addition, in the course of this operation has been deactivated erase data on phones that criminals could not cover his tracks.Detected information, according to representatives of police of the Netherlands, gave the opportunity to “look at the everyday life world of crime.” These data were provided for analysis to Europol, and from April 1, law enforcement agencies began to arrest.”This year the police has the upper hand”,— was said in one of the messages of criminals, which was published by NCA. In another report it is stated that “NCA, as you well know, sophisticated and ruthless,” if “this is NCA reached us, then we’re in big trouble”.In may Encrochat began to receive complaints from customers that they did not work erase data. The company began to deal with the problem, finding something like the ‘hacking’ of the network. In June, after numerous attempts to deal with this hacking was inconclusive, according to Motherboard, in Encrochat understand that we are dealing not with ordinary hackers or competitors, as they thought, and with the government.Encrochat decided to immediately stop the activity and sent its customers a message that because of the powerful attacks and the introduction of malicious software “we can no longer guarantee the reliability ��your device.” The company recommended that customers with “turn off the phone immediately and get rid of it”. However, it was too late.Thus, during the operation of Venetic in the UK was arrested 746 members of criminal gangs, confiscated 77 firearms, including AK47, machine guns, grenades, ammunition, over 2 tons of drugs and more than 28 million tablets etizolam, 55 luxury cars and dozens of expensive watches. In the Netherlands arrested more than 100 suspects, seized more than 8 tons of cocaine and 1,200 kg of methamphetamine, eliminated 19 of clandestine drug laboratories seized dozens of firearms, almost €20 million in cash, expensive cars and watches. As noted in Europol, among the detainees there as ordinary members of criminal gangs and leaders.Alena Miklashevskaya