Security News > 2023 > May > UK cops score legal win in EncroChat snooping op

The UK's National Crime Agency has partially won an important legal battle in a case that challenged the warrants used to obtain messages from cyber crook hangout EncroChat.

EncroChat offered an encrypted phone and mobile service for just $1,500 a month - and you thought your mobile bill was bad - which was chiefly used by criminals to organize their schemes and scams out of reach of the cops.

In a decision issued Thursday, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that the National Crime Agency "Did not fail in any material respect in fulfilling the duty of candour" when it obtained a targeted equipment interference warrant allowing the plod to access tons of private messages stored on EncroChat devices.

While the TEI warrant allowed the cops to collect communications stored on a device - and thus, according to the tribunal, was obtained legally - there's a different type of warrant that UK authorities must obtain to intercept messages in transit.

The tribunal said it didn't reach a determination about whether the NCA illegally intercepted communications while they were being transmitted, and decided to "Defer further consideration of this chapter of the case" until after the Crown Court's criminal proceedings in a related EncroChat case have wrapped.

Just yesterday, a man described as the "Kingpin" of an organized crime group that controlled "One of the largest amphetamine laboratories ever found in the UK," was jailed as a result of data obtained from EncroChat.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/05/12/nca_encrochat_warrants/