Dutch and Spanish police recently arrested four major distributors of the criminal Sky ECC service. The suspects played a leading role in the organization behind the criminal communications service, according to police.
In the Netherlands, two suspects were arrested in Amsterdam and Arnhem in late January, the local National Police reported. These two suspects, who sold the Sky ECC service to criminals, allegedly accounted for a quarter of total turnover of the criminal communication service Sky Global. In doing so, they are said to have made 6.8 million euros in profits.
The arrested resellers of the service allegedly have a high ranking within the SkyGlobal organization and years of direct access to the CEO of the criminal communications platform.
Spanish arrests
In Spain, police simultaneously arrested two suspects who played a major role in the global distribution of the Sky ECC service. The two suspects from the Alicante and Ibiza region possibly generated sales of more than 13.5 million euros.
Their services included providing access to and from Sky devices, supplying SIM cards and the Sky software. They also allegedly handled the billing and collection of subscription fees, €600 for three months.
During the arrest, in addition to Sky ECC phones, electronic equipment, a total of 10,000 and 26,500 euros in cash, 1.4 million euros in cryptocurrencies, two cars and more than 50,000 euros worth of luxury goods were seized.
Because the Dutch prosecutor’s office was leading the investigation, the Spanish suspects will be extradited to the Netherlands.
Sky ECC already cracked for years
Europol managed to crack the Sky ECC service, through which criminals communicated with each other in encrypted form, as early as 2021. This allowed judicial authorities from member countries to monitor the platform’s 70,000 end users undetected for years and expose many of their criminal activities.
Examples of the criminal behavior included drug trafficking, as revealed in the infamous Dutch Marengo trial, arms trafficking and money laundering.
Also read: Criminal communications service Matrix taken down by police forces