Η National Crime Prevention Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom discovered the identities of two drug traffickers, thanks to photos taken by them and sent via the EncroChat chat platform, believing that communication is safe. These photographs showed the faces of the drug traffickers, but the crucial clue that led to the discovery of the identity card were a photo with one's dog (pet).
Ο Danny Brown, 55 years old, from Bromley and Stefan Baldauf, 62, from Ealing were sentenced earlier this year to 26 and 28 years imprisonment respectively, from the service of the United Kingdom to tackle serious and organised crime.
Their identities were revealed as part of the Operation Venetic, the response of the United Kingdom law enforcement authorities to the abolition of EncroChat in 2020. The EncroChat was a encrypted platform conversation used by criminals around the world. The app had become very popular among scammers because it allowed them for a time to have secure communication with each other and exchange information for their illegal activities.
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Although it is not clear exactly how the police managed to break the system, the effects have been felt over the last two years. EncroChat is said to have been used by 60,000 people around the world. Of these, around 10,000 were in the UK.
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However, because the users only referred to themselves by pseudonyms in the conversations, the NCA was unable to immediately discover the identities of the two drug traffickers.
Unbeknownst to them, the two men took and shared photos that led to their arrest. Brown had shared a photo of a screen TV, on which there was a reflection of his face. On the other hand, the reflection of Baldauf's face was shown in a photo of a door that he had uploaded to the communication app.
Brown also made the mistake of sending a photo of his pet dog, Bob, in Baldauf. The NCA researchers said they were able to they zoomed in on the pet's tag, which had a phone number belonging to Brown's partner.
The two were convicted, along with several others, of attempting to ship 448 kilograms of MDMA worth 45 million pounds ($55 million) to Australia. The drugs were hidden in an industrial excavator weighing 40 tonnes.
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NCA's operations director, Chris Hill, said that the gang of organized crime went to great lengths to ensure that she would remain unnoticed, but she failed.
“These men thought they were safe on EncroChat, but my officers did an excellent and painstaking job of creating the Data against them through a mix of traditional and modern skills“, Add.
“The random selfies of Brown and Baldauf and the photo of Bob the dog were the icing on the cake“.
Source : www.infosecurity-magazine.com
