The Public Prosecution Service is demanding prison sentences against three suspects for offering crypto telephones and an encrypted messaging service. According to the Public Prosecution Service, these products were intended as a means of communication for criminals. The sentence is between 2 and 5.5 years.
The three men are before the court in Arnhem because they are said to have been involved between 2013 and November 2018 in 'setting up and operating a system for encrypted communications' from the company Blackbox Security. That sold IronPhone crypto phones and an associated IronChat messaging service, the Public Prosecution Service writes. A prison sentence has been demanded against all three suspects. For the main suspect, the owner of Blackbox Security, the requirement is 5.5 years. The sentences for the two co-suspects are 2.5 and 2 years.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, the service was especially popular among criminals and the suspects were aware of this. “Instead of taking measures to deter criminals, they have deliberately further adapted the products and services to make them as attractive as possible for them,” the prosecutors said during a hearing. The communications product had a 'strong market share among criminals' both at home and abroad, they say.
The Public Prosecution Service claims that the suspects did not register data on the sale of devices and subscriptions and did not cooperate with judicial requests. The crypto phone could also be purchased with cash payment, despite warnings from the company's banker, even though this was 'not acceptable in the light of anti-money laundering measures', the Public Prosecution Service writes. Orders were sometimes spread over multiple payments to stay below the legal limit above which these payments must be reported, the Public Prosecution Service claims.
The messaging service also had functions to easily delete the conversation history via a 'panic button' and a 'crashme' function. This way, criminals could quickly delete their evidence, according to the Public Prosecution Service. Furthermore, the company's helpdesk is said to have deleted accounts remotely upon request. This is said to have happened in sixteen cases, after users reported that arrests had taken place. According to the prosecutors, the suspects were aware of this.
The police started an investigation into Blackbox Security in 2017. The IronChat messaging service was taken offline in November 2018. Before then, the police had already obtained the service's encryption keys. This allowed the police to read live messages on the service for weeks. According to the police, communication on the chat service was almost exclusively about crime, including the trade in weapons, drugs, money and bitcoin.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.