Wiesbaden (dts) – In Germany, 1.708 arrest warrants have been executed so far in connection with the so-called Encrochat investigations. This emerges from figures from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), which “Welt am Sonntag” reports on.
The encrypted messenger service was particularly popular with criminals until it was shut down in May 2020 and had around 60.000 users worldwide. According to the BKA, in Germany alone the authorities seized around eleven tonnes of cannabis, cocaine, heroin and synthetic drugs in the course of Encrochat investigations and initiated almost 4.000 proceedings.
A spokesman for the BKA told the Sunday newspaper: "The data reveals a large extent of the most serious criminal acts, some of which are characterized by a very high potential for violence." The BKA has set up a permanent unit specifically for this purpose in order to process the mass of information in a targeted manner for further investigations to be able to analyze.
