Over 6,500 Arrested, €900M Seized In Three Years After 2020 EncroChat Hack
Read also: Twitter hacker sentenced to prison, police rescued over 2,700 people forced to carry out scams, and more.
Thursday, June 29, 2023
The EncroChat hack led to over 6,500 arrests by Europol
The 2020 takedown of the encrypted communications platform EncroChat used by organized crime groups has so far led to more than 6,500 arrests and €900 million ($980 million) in seized or frozen assets, according to European policing agency Europol. Out of 6,500 arrests close to 200 arrests were of “high-value targets.”
The hack of the EncroChat tool allowed law enforcement authorities to read millions of messages of suspected criminals and helped to prevent multiple crimes, Europol said.
Since 2020, police managed to intercept 115 million criminal conversations, by an estimated number of over 60 000 users.
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Twitter hacker PlugwalkJoe sentenced to 5 years in prison
An infamous hacker behind one of the biggest Twitter hacks in history was sentenced to five years in prison in the US with three years of supervised release, plus he was ordered to forfeit roughly $795,000.
Joseph James O'Connor, 23, known as PlugwalkJoe, was extradited to the US from Spain on April 26, 2023. He pleaded guilty on May 9, 2023, to multiple charges, including those related to the breach of multiple Twitter accounts and takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts, as well as cyberstalking and SIM swap attacks.
In July 2020, the US Department of Justice charged three people suspected to be behind the massive 2020 Twitter hack. The malicious actors used social engineering to gain access to one of Twitter's internal Slack channels, where they found credentials for Twitter's moderation panel. The group used this panel to access and post messages promoting a cryptocurrency scam that generated more than $100,000.
Founder of ‘Monopoly’ darknet drug market charged in the US
US authorities have charged Milomir Desnica, a 33-year-old citizen of Croatia and Serbia, with running a darknet market called “Monopoly Market” specializing in selling illegal narcotics.
Desnica is said to have facilitated $18 million in illegal drug transactions through Monopoly, which he launched in late 2019. The platform was disrupted in May 2023 in a major law enforcement operation, with 288 dark web vendors arrested.
In November 2021, Desnica was arrested in Austria and extradited to the US in June 2023, where he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and financial penalties.
Thousands of people forced to carry out cyber scams rescued in the Philippines
More than 2,700 people allegedly forced into working for fraudulent online gaming sites and cybercrime syndicates were rescued in Manila, Philippines, in a police raid said to be the largest so far this year.
According to the police, among those rescued were 1,534 Filipinos and 1,190 foreigners from at least 17 countries, including China (604), Vietnam (183), Indonesia (137), Malaysia (134), Thailand (81), as well as Myanmar, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Taiwan. It’s unclear, how many suspected leaders of the cybercrime gangs were arrested.
Officials said victims were enticed into taking jobs by Facebook ads offering high salary and ideal working conditions but many of them found themselves trapped in virtual slavery and forced to participate in online scams.
Dutch cybersecurity agencies to merge into a single expertise center
The Dutch government has approved plans to merge the country’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Digital Trust Centre (DTC) and Cyber Security Incident Response Team for Digital Service Providers (CSIRT-DSP) into a single cybersecurity agency.
The plan, first unveiled last year, is part of a new national security strategy and aims to provide organizations and companies in the Netherlands with government support when encountering cybersecurity threats such as cybercrime, digital espionage, or sabotage via digital means.
The integration process will be gradual and should be completed by January 1, 2026. The new agency will operate under the Ministry of Justice and Security (Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid, JenV).
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Key Dutch has been working in information technology and cybersecurity for over 20 years, starting his first job with Windows 95 and dial-up modems. As the Editor-in-Chief of our Cybercrime Prosecution Weekly blog series, he compiles the most interesting news about police operations against cybercrime, as well as about regulatory actions enforcing data protection and privacy law. 
