{"id":87374,"date":"2023-02-06T21:31:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T21:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/?p=87374"},"modified":"2023-02-06T21:31:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T21:31:00","slug":"cops-make-arrests-and-seize-drugs-after-hacking-exclu-encrypted-messaging-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/?p=87374","title":{"rendered":"Cops make arrests and seize drugs after hacking Exclu encrypted messaging app"},"content":{"rendered":"
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European police have shut down an encrypted messaging service used by thousands of people including members of organised crime groups.<\/p>\n

A joint operation led by Dutch and German police has led to over 45 arrests following a multi-country probe into the Exclu encrypted messaging service.<\/p>\n

Police covertly read decrypted communications on the app for five months before launching co-ordinated raids, according to a series of announcements<\/a> on Monday 6 February.<\/p>\n

Exclu claims on its web site to offer the \u201cmost secure encryption protocols\u201d which it says have been audited by cryptography experts to ensure they contain no backdoor vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnd-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you\u2019re communicating with can read what\u2019s sent, and no body in between, not even Exclu,\u201d it claims.<\/p>\n

Customers could buy a six month subscription to the service, allowing them to share text messages, pictures and videos, according to a statement by the European justice agency Eurojust.<\/p>\n

 \u201cThe application was praised by users for its high level of reliability and service,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The encrypted messaging service had 3,000 users including 750 Dutch speakers.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/i>Clues discovered in German Cyberbunker<\/h3>\n

German police began investigating Exclu in June 2020 after discovering that the service had been hosted in a notorious \u201ccyberbunker\u201d in Traben-Trabach<\/a>. The bunker allegedly hosted drug marketplaces on the dark-web before being shut down by German police in September 2019.<\/p>\n

Exclu continued to use a server in Germany.<\/p>\n

In a series of co-ordinated raids on 3 February 2023, 1,200 police officers in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Poland searched 79 addresses.<\/p>\n

Police dismantled two drug laboratories and seized Euro 5.5 million in cash, 300,000 ecstasy tablets and 200 mobile phones, which are being examined by forensics and digital experts.<\/p>\n

Police in the Netherlands and Germany made 45 arrests. Holland\u2019s Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD<\/a>) arrested a 51 year old man from Tilberg in Southern Holland, on suspicion of money laundering. Investigators seized crypto-currency<\/a> and an encrypted phone from his home.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n

<\/i>Exclu accused of supporting organised crime<\/h3>\n

Police accuse the operators and owners of Exclu of supporting organised crime and drug trafficking by providing encrypted communications services to criminals, according to a statement<\/a> by the public prosecutor\u2019s office in Koblenz, Germany.<\/p>\n

German police said they had executed several search warrants targeting the operators of Exclu but made no arrests.<\/p>\n

Dutch police began an investigation, codenamed \u201826 Samber,\u2019 in September into the owners and managers of the Exclu service.<\/p>\n

A second Dutch investigation, codenamed  \u201826Lytham,\u2019 began on 28 April 2022 into users of Exclu who were suspected of involvement in organised crime.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>Innocent Exclu users urged to contact Dutch <\/h3>\n

Dutch police have asked users who can claim legal privilege<\/a>, such as lawyers, notaries and clergy to email the Openbaar Ministrie<\/a> – responsible for bringing prosecutions – to request that their data is deleted.<\/p>\n

The international collaboration to take down Exclu follows similar operations to dismantle encrypted phone networks suspected of being used by organised crime.<\/p>\n

French and Dutch police hacked the EncroChat encrypted phone service in 2020, obtaining millions of decrypted messages, and sparking arrests in the UK, Holland and Sweden, among other countries.<\/p>\n

Belgian and Dutch Police announced they had penetrated the Sky ECC encrypted<\/a> phone service in March 2021 leading to further arrests of alleged drug dealers.<\/p>\n

In June 2021, Police in 16 countries carried<\/a> out raids after Australian Police and the FBI cracked the An0M encrypted phone network, in Operation Trojan Shield.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n

<\/i>Dutch lead on encryption<\/h3>\n

The Dutch police have longstanding expertise in cracking encrypted communications services.<\/p>\n

Computer Weekly has previously reported that the Dutch National Forensics Institute (NFI) was a key participant with French police in a two-year project with University College, Dublin, to study how to break passwords of encrypted systems in February 2019.<\/p>\n

The \u00a32.3m project, Cerberus, played a key role in helping the joint French and Dutch police operation  read messages on a server used by the EncroChat encrypted phone network, according to the NFI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Europol provided investigating police forces with \u2018real time\u2019 operational support to identify imminent threat to life and high security risks during investigations into Exclu.<\/p>\n

Eurojust has supported judicial co-operation on the investigation into Exclu since February 2022, hosting 8 meeting to between the Dutch and German prosecutors and law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Computer Weekly contacted Exclu for comment through its website without response.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

European police have shut down an encrypted messaging service used by thousands of people including members of organised crime groups. A joint operation led by Dutch and German police has led to over 45 arrests following a multi-country probe into the Exclu encrypted messaging service. Police covertly read decrypted communications on the app for five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[533],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}