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The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted the president of Sky Global, the parent company of Sky ECC, which has developed a secure communication platform predominantly used by criminal gangs.
Sky Global CEO Jean-Francois Eap, a Canadian citizen, and Thomas Herdman, a former distributor of Sky Global encrypted devices, have been charged with violating the U.S. RICO Act, which is rarely applied to technology companies.
Sky Global sells customized Android devices, BlackBerry, and iPhones without GPS sensors and cameras, and with an emergency button to delete the contents of the smartphone in the event of an arrest. Devices are configured by default to connect to the Sky ECC platform through a range of configurable communication apps that allow members of the same criminal gang to communicate encryptedly.
According to the DOJ, Sky Global "knowingly and willfully" sells its services to criminal gangs in order to help them prevent law enforcement from actively monitoring reports in criminal investigations by "remotely removing evidence of such activity" from its network when necessary.
Investigators said that Sky Global adhered to "no ask/do nothing" tactics in relation to its 70 thousand customers and even implemented cryptocurrency transactions on its website to ensure their anonymity.
The charges against the head of Sky Global came three days after Belgian and Dutch law enforcement officers seized the company's servers, arrested 78 suspects and searched 275 homes in both countries.
Belgian police have launched an investigation into Sky Global after drug couriers arrested in the Belgian city of Antwerp had their phones with the Sky ECC app seized.
Sky Global denied involvement, saying in a press release that law enforcement confiscated devices and arrested suspects using a "fake phishing app under the false brand SKY ECC" that had no connection to the company.
The RICO (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) is a US law on racketeering and corrupt organizations. It was designed to persecute not individuals, but organizations, which can be both legal entities and any group of actually united people. The penalties provided for by this law are much stricter than for individual crimes. In particular, the result of the application of the RICO law was the imprisonment of the leaders of the American mafia, the liquidation of the activities of entire "families".
• Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/p...ted-providing-encrypted-communication-devices
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European law enforcement agencies claim that they managed to hack the highly secure Sky ECC service, study the correspondence of criminals and carry out a large-scale operation against the drug mafia. Sky ECC claims that there was no hack.
Sky ECC
hacking Law enforcement agencies of the EU countries conducted a large-scale operation, as a result of which 48 people were arrested and 17 tons of cocaine were seized. This, according to law enforcement officers, became possible after they managed to break the encryption of the closed messaging service Sky ECC, especially popular with criminals.
Sky ECC is a Canadian service that provides communication services with a "paranoid" level of security. The company sells its customers specialized smartphones that have completely disabled cameras, microphones and GPS sensors. All messages are encrypted and deleted automatically after 30 seconds. A special "panic" button allows you to instantly clear the smartphone of any content. Previously, the company offered a prize of up to $5 million to anyone who could break its encryption. Naturally, organized crime is very willing to use this service.
According to Europol, in mid-February 2021, law enforcement agencies somehow managed to uncover Sky ECC's defenses and start reading the correspondence of its European clients, representatives of criminal circles. Later, on March 9, 2021, Belgian law enforcement officers conducted 200 simultaneous raids.
Some details
In a press release from Europol, the number of Sky ECC users is estimated at 170 thousand people, and the number of messages sent daily reaches 3 million.
Many of them had previously used EncroChat, another similar service popular in criminal circles. In 2019-2020, European law enforcement agencies managed to compromise the protection of the service and start tracking the correspondence of suspects. The service soon ceased to exist, but the information obtained by law enforcement officers made it possible to make a lot of arrests and intercept a large amount of drugs and weapons.
The Brussels Times quoted Belgian Federal Prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw as saying that once the Sky ECC encryption had been broken, the country's federal police now deserved the $5 million prize promised by the Canadian company.
At the same time, Sky ECC claims that no hacking actually took place. A statement was published on the company's website claiming that all reports of the Sky ECC devices and networks being compromised are false, and that in fact someone was spreading fakes under the guise of the company's devices.
"We have been informed by authorized distributors in Belgium and the Netherlands of the emergence of a fake phishing application falsely attributed to Sky ECC, which was illegitimately created, modified and indirectly downloaded to unsecured devices, from which all protections of authorized Sky ECC smartphones have been removed. These devices were then distributed through unauthorized channels," the statement said. Further, it is implicitly stated that these the fake devices were created by the police, and that Sky ECC has nothing to do with them. Moreover, the company intends to prosecute the creators of fakes in the manner prescribed by law.
The Brussels Times also reports that at least two lawyers suspected of complicity in criminal activities were arrested as part of the operation. In the past, both lawyers represented the defendants in cases related to the distribution of drugs, but now the main thing they are accused of is the supply of protected smartphones to criminal communities.
Whether we are talking about genuine Sky ECC devices or alleged fakes will probably only become known during the trial.
"The authors of the statement try so hard to emphasize the falsity of the information about the cracking of encryption that it looks almost comical, but such emotionality can be understood: if the encryption is really compromised, and law enforcement agencies have the opportunity to read the correspondence of their clients, the company can be closed," says Anastasia Melnikova, information security expert at SEC Consult Services. " "Regardless of who makes up the main user base of Sky ECC, it turns out that the main advantage of the service promised to them no longer works. On the other hand, the version of the spread of fakes under the guise of official Sky smartphones, no matter how strange it may seem, is not necessarily fiction. But even in this case, the law enforcement agencies of Europe can be congratulated on the extremely successful special operation."
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US law enforcement agencies have begun using data obtained from the hacking of Sky's encrypted telephone network to investigate cases related to international crime. This is reported by 404 Media based on an analysis of US court materials.
The hack, which took place in 2021, allowed European agencies to access millions of messages, despite the fact that the Sky service was advertised as secure using end-to-end encryption. The data collected became the basis for numerous investigations and arrests in Europe, and now its influence has spread to the United States.
According to declassified documents, the data played a key role in the case of Miloš Radonžić, known by the nickname "Pirate of the Unknown". Radonžić and his co-conspirators used commercial container ships to transport large shipments of banned substances from South America to the United States and Europe. Radonžić was arrested in October 2023 in Italy and extradited to the United States in July 2024.
The charges against Radonzic are based, among other things, on information obtained from Sky reports. In particular, Radonžić and his accomplices used Sky ECC, Signal, iMessage and Facetime messengers to coordinate the process of loading goods onto ships. U.S. authorities have received reports from European counterparts, although the documents do not indicate whether the U.S. has access to the entire Sky database.
Sky messages contain detailed information about ships, geodata, and other key evidence. Also in the correspondence there is information that directly connects Radonzic with the Sky device itself: photos of receipts with his name and even mentions of the birthdays of his family members.
During the investigation, several mobile phones were seized from Radonjic, including an iPhone 14 and two Samsung devices. Radonžić voluntarily provided the iPhone password to the Italian authorities, but said he did not remember the passwords of other devices. This raised suspicions among investigators, as such behavior is typical of international criminals who try to make it difficult to access compromising data.
The Radonžić case is not the only case in the U.S. that uses Sky data. In 2023, European police detained three people in Belgrade, whom they call the "biggest" drug lords in the Balkans. The arrest was made possible thanks to the hacking of the encrypted messenger Sky ECC, which was used by criminals to hide their activities. Police also arrested 10 more cartel members in Belgium, Serbia, Peru and the Netherlands, for a total of 23 people.
It is worth recalling two other encrypted communication services - EncroChat and ANOM , which were also previously hacked and soon closed. Like Sky ECC, these paid communication apps have been popular among criminals to hide their illegal operations. Data from all three services was used by law enforcement as evidence for thousands of arrests.
• Source: https://www.404media.co/us-feds-are-tapping-a-half-billion-encrypted-messaging-goldmine-2/
Sky Global CEO Jean-Francois Eap, a Canadian citizen, and Thomas Herdman, a former distributor of Sky Global encrypted devices, have been charged with violating the U.S. RICO Act, which is rarely applied to technology companies.
Sky Global sells customized Android devices, BlackBerry, and iPhones without GPS sensors and cameras, and with an emergency button to delete the contents of the smartphone in the event of an arrest. Devices are configured by default to connect to the Sky ECC platform through a range of configurable communication apps that allow members of the same criminal gang to communicate encryptedly.
According to the DOJ, Sky Global "knowingly and willfully" sells its services to criminal gangs in order to help them prevent law enforcement from actively monitoring reports in criminal investigations by "remotely removing evidence of such activity" from its network when necessary.
Investigators said that Sky Global adhered to "no ask/do nothing" tactics in relation to its 70 thousand customers and even implemented cryptocurrency transactions on its website to ensure their anonymity.
The charges against the head of Sky Global came three days after Belgian and Dutch law enforcement officers seized the company's servers, arrested 78 suspects and searched 275 homes in both countries.
Belgian police have launched an investigation into Sky Global after drug couriers arrested in the Belgian city of Antwerp had their phones with the Sky ECC app seized.
Sky Global denied involvement, saying in a press release that law enforcement confiscated devices and arrested suspects using a "fake phishing app under the false brand SKY ECC" that had no connection to the company.
The RICO (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) is a US law on racketeering and corrupt organizations. It was designed to persecute not individuals, but organizations, which can be both legal entities and any group of actually united people. The penalties provided for by this law are much stricter than for individual crimes. In particular, the result of the application of the RICO law was the imprisonment of the leaders of the American mafia, the liquidation of the activities of entire "families".
• Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/p...ted-providing-encrypted-communication-devices
----------------
European law enforcement agencies claim that they managed to hack the highly secure Sky ECC service, study the correspondence of criminals and carry out a large-scale operation against the drug mafia. Sky ECC claims that there was no hack.
Sky ECC
hacking Law enforcement agencies of the EU countries conducted a large-scale operation, as a result of which 48 people were arrested and 17 tons of cocaine were seized. This, according to law enforcement officers, became possible after they managed to break the encryption of the closed messaging service Sky ECC, especially popular with criminals.
Sky ECC is a Canadian service that provides communication services with a "paranoid" level of security. The company sells its customers specialized smartphones that have completely disabled cameras, microphones and GPS sensors. All messages are encrypted and deleted automatically after 30 seconds. A special "panic" button allows you to instantly clear the smartphone of any content. Previously, the company offered a prize of up to $5 million to anyone who could break its encryption. Naturally, organized crime is very willing to use this service.
According to Europol, in mid-February 2021, law enforcement agencies somehow managed to uncover Sky ECC's defenses and start reading the correspondence of its European clients, representatives of criminal circles. Later, on March 9, 2021, Belgian law enforcement officers conducted 200 simultaneous raids.
Some details
In a press release from Europol, the number of Sky ECC users is estimated at 170 thousand people, and the number of messages sent daily reaches 3 million.
Many of them had previously used EncroChat, another similar service popular in criminal circles. In 2019-2020, European law enforcement agencies managed to compromise the protection of the service and start tracking the correspondence of suspects. The service soon ceased to exist, but the information obtained by law enforcement officers made it possible to make a lot of arrests and intercept a large amount of drugs and weapons.
The Brussels Times quoted Belgian Federal Prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw as saying that once the Sky ECC encryption had been broken, the country's federal police now deserved the $5 million prize promised by the Canadian company.
At the same time, Sky ECC claims that no hacking actually took place. A statement was published on the company's website claiming that all reports of the Sky ECC devices and networks being compromised are false, and that in fact someone was spreading fakes under the guise of the company's devices.
"We have been informed by authorized distributors in Belgium and the Netherlands of the emergence of a fake phishing application falsely attributed to Sky ECC, which was illegitimately created, modified and indirectly downloaded to unsecured devices, from which all protections of authorized Sky ECC smartphones have been removed. These devices were then distributed through unauthorized channels," the statement said. Further, it is implicitly stated that these the fake devices were created by the police, and that Sky ECC has nothing to do with them. Moreover, the company intends to prosecute the creators of fakes in the manner prescribed by law.
The Brussels Times also reports that at least two lawyers suspected of complicity in criminal activities were arrested as part of the operation. In the past, both lawyers represented the defendants in cases related to the distribution of drugs, but now the main thing they are accused of is the supply of protected smartphones to criminal communities.
Whether we are talking about genuine Sky ECC devices or alleged fakes will probably only become known during the trial.
"The authors of the statement try so hard to emphasize the falsity of the information about the cracking of encryption that it looks almost comical, but such emotionality can be understood: if the encryption is really compromised, and law enforcement agencies have the opportunity to read the correspondence of their clients, the company can be closed," says Anastasia Melnikova, information security expert at SEC Consult Services. " "Regardless of who makes up the main user base of Sky ECC, it turns out that the main advantage of the service promised to them no longer works. On the other hand, the version of the spread of fakes under the guise of official Sky smartphones, no matter how strange it may seem, is not necessarily fiction. But even in this case, the law enforcement agencies of Europe can be congratulated on the extremely successful special operation."
-----------------
US law enforcement agencies have begun using data obtained from the hacking of Sky's encrypted telephone network to investigate cases related to international crime. This is reported by 404 Media based on an analysis of US court materials.
The hack, which took place in 2021, allowed European agencies to access millions of messages, despite the fact that the Sky service was advertised as secure using end-to-end encryption. The data collected became the basis for numerous investigations and arrests in Europe, and now its influence has spread to the United States.
According to declassified documents, the data played a key role in the case of Miloš Radonžić, known by the nickname "Pirate of the Unknown". Radonžić and his co-conspirators used commercial container ships to transport large shipments of banned substances from South America to the United States and Europe. Radonžić was arrested in October 2023 in Italy and extradited to the United States in July 2024.
The charges against Radonzic are based, among other things, on information obtained from Sky reports. In particular, Radonžić and his accomplices used Sky ECC, Signal, iMessage and Facetime messengers to coordinate the process of loading goods onto ships. U.S. authorities have received reports from European counterparts, although the documents do not indicate whether the U.S. has access to the entire Sky database.
Sky messages contain detailed information about ships, geodata, and other key evidence. Also in the correspondence there is information that directly connects Radonzic with the Sky device itself: photos of receipts with his name and even mentions of the birthdays of his family members.
During the investigation, several mobile phones were seized from Radonjic, including an iPhone 14 and two Samsung devices. Radonžić voluntarily provided the iPhone password to the Italian authorities, but said he did not remember the passwords of other devices. This raised suspicions among investigators, as such behavior is typical of international criminals who try to make it difficult to access compromising data.
The Radonžić case is not the only case in the U.S. that uses Sky data. In 2023, European police detained three people in Belgrade, whom they call the "biggest" drug lords in the Balkans. The arrest was made possible thanks to the hacking of the encrypted messenger Sky ECC, which was used by criminals to hide their activities. Police also arrested 10 more cartel members in Belgium, Serbia, Peru and the Netherlands, for a total of 23 people.
It is worth recalling two other encrypted communication services - EncroChat and ANOM , which were also previously hacked and soon closed. Like Sky ECC, these paid communication apps have been popular among criminals to hide their illegal operations. Data from all three services was used by law enforcement as evidence for thousands of arrests.
• Source: https://www.404media.co/us-feds-are-tapping-a-half-billion-encrypted-messaging-goldmine-2/
