Operation Venetic was the major operation by multiple law enforcement agencies across the world to uncover and infiltrate EncroChat – the encrypted mobile phone network used by thousands of criminals to securely communicate (or so they thought).
Since 2016, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) had been working with international law enforcement agencies to target EncroChat and other encrypted criminal communication platforms by sharing their technical expertise and intelligence.
In early 2020, this collaboration resulted in partners in France and the Netherlands infiltrating the platform. The data harvested from the network was shared to multiple law enforcement agencies via Europol.
Unbeknownst to its users, ever since the infiltration of the network, law enforcement agencies across the world have been monitoring their every move.
Massive network of criminals
According to the NCA, There were over 60,000 users of EncroChat worldwide and around 10,000 users in the UK – the sole use of the platform was for coordinating and planning the distribution of illicit commodities, money laundering and plotting to kill rival criminals.
How did it work?
EncroChat offered modified Android and BlackBerry devices with pre-installed encrypted applications for messaging, voice calls, and note-taking. The devices had a “panic button” feature to erase all data if the user felt that their
These devices, known as “carbon units,” had their GPS, camera, and microphone functions disabled for privacy.
The devices could also boot into a secret encrypted partition for secure communication through servers located in France.
The service cost €1,000 per device and €1,500 for a six-month contract.
EncroChat had resellers in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Madrid, and Dubai, but operated as a secretive firm.
Crime gangs decimated
Since the infiltration of the EncroChat network, entire organised crime groups have been dismantled with 746 arrests being made and a large number of criminal assets seized including:
- Over £54million in criminal cash
- 77 firearms, including an AK47 assault rifle, sub machine guns, handguns, four grenades, and over 1,800 rounds of ammunition
- More than two tonnes of Class A and B drugs
- Over 28 million Etizolam pills (street Valium) from an illicit laboratory
- 55 high value cars, and 73 luxury watches
It just keeps on giving
This month saw the the kingpin of one organised crime group that controlled one of the largest amphetamine laboratories ever found in the UK being jailed for 18 years.
John Keet, 42, of Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire, invested profits from a long career dealing cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines into building and managing a huge laboratory on the outskirts of Redditch in the West Midlands.
The Laboratory was capable of producing 400 kilos of amphetamine per month, worth £2 million at wholesale and up to £10 million at street level.
The crime group run by Keet would then distribute the drugs to dealers in the West Midlands, London and Kent.
Back to schools
To enable the laboratory to run successfully, Keet paid for some of his gang members (Keith Davis & Andrew Gurney), to undergo chemistry training to enable them to operate the site.
Gurney was known as ‘The Geek’ due to his specialist electrical installation and plumbing skills. He converted what had been a double garage outbuilding into the drugs laboratory with full electrical wiring and plumbing systems to control multiple drug-making stations. The equipment had been purchased by another gang member – Elliott Walker, 49, of Kidbrooke, south London.
Police investigations
In court, the judge and jurors were told that officers evidenced that work started on the lab in March 2020 and that the gang were ready to start producing drugs in May of that year.
The gang initially bought the amphetamine pre-cursor chemical – benzyl methyl ketone (BMK), but quickly realised it was more profitable to make it themselves, and set about extending the laboratory and training the gang members in chemistry.
Following weeks of surveillance, NCA officers raided the site in Ullenhall Lane, Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, on 27th April 2021, with assistance from Warwickshire Police.
Plumes of noxious fumes billowed from the outbuilding when it was opened by specialist crews from West Midlands Fire Service, who had to wait several hours before searching it due to the hazardous chemicals inside.
Waste products from the production process, which had been flushed into the sewerage system, had also contaminated a nearby field.
Convictions
The gang members were all arrested on suspicion of drug offences at their home addresses on the same day the factory was raided.
Davis and Gurney were convicted on 8th June 2022, following a 12-day trial, and were jailed for five years and six years and three months respectively on 10th June.
At a hearing on 21st September, the Court of Appeal ruled that the previous sentences were unduly lenient and a Judge increased them to 10 years each.
Walker pleaded guilty to conspiracy to producing class B drugs (amphetamine) on 17th September 2022 and was jailed for six years on 14th December.
On the 10th May 2023, at Kingston Crown Court, Keet pleaded guilty to all the charges faced and was jailed for 18 years.