Police have arrested three men and one woman over their alleged role in distributing Sky ECC encrypted phones used by organised crime groups across multiple countries.
The Dutch public prosecutors’ office confirmed that the suspects were involved in the distribution of encrypted phones supplied by Canadian technology company, Sky Global, to organised crime groups. Police have also seized €1.4 million in cryptocurrency and property.
The suspects, who have not been named by Dutch prosecutors, are accused of running a criminal organisation and laundering the proceeds of crime by taking money from criminal organisations to supply encrypted phones.
French, Belgian and Dutch police infiltrated services belonging to Sky ECC, the world’s largest cryptophone network, and decrypted millions of messages between June 2019 and March 2021, leading to the arrests of drug gangs in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Dutch police have used decrypted messages harvested from Sky ECC phones to bring hundreds of criminal cases in the Netherlands against people accused of drugs and arms trafficking, money laundering and violent crime.
The owner and founder of Sky Global, which operated the encrypted Sky ECC phone service, Jean-Francios Eap, continues to run technology and a sushi businesses in Vancouver. He has denied allegations that the company knowingly supplied phones to criminal organisations.
Dutch prosecutors confirmed that Spanish police arrested a 37-year-old from Amsterdam in Alicante, Spain this week. The man, part of a network of distributors and resellers used by Sky Global, was responsible for supplying Sky ECC phones to the Netherlands.
Spanish police also arrested a 36-year-old from Arnhem, in Holland, on the Spanish island of Ibiza. The man, who was a shareholder and director of a “large number” of companies in the Netherlands, Cuacao, and Canada, was involved in distributing Sky ECC phones and software used by international criminals.
Police in Amsterdam also arrested a 37-year-old man, described as a prime suspect in their investigation, and a 36-year old woman for allegedly profiting by distributing Sky ECC phones to criminal groups.
Most secure app you can buy
Sky Global, based in Vancouver, supplied encrypted phones to 70,000 users worldwide. It installed sophisticated encryption software on iPhones, Google Pixel, Blackberry and Nokia handsets, which routed encrypted text messages through servers in France and Canada.
The company advertised its Sky ECC messaging service as the “most secure messaging platform you can buy”. Phones fitted with the Sky ECC app offered self-destructing messages, secure audio messages, and a secure encrypted vault. Users communicated using anonymous “handles” or aliases.
The Dutch suspects are believed to have been responsible for the distribution and management of about a quarter of the Sky ECC subscriptions worldwide, equivalent to €13.8 million in revenue and €6.8 million in profits.
They maintained contact with resellers and agents, who sold the crypto phones to clients that paid €600 for a three month subscription. The distributors are believed to have placed a large part of their profits in crypto wallets and invested in real estate, including a holiday park.
French indictment
A number of those arrested this week, are listed among 30 Sky ECC distributors and resellers named in a French indictment.
The only person involved in the distribution of Sky ECC phones in French custody, is Canadian businessman, Thomas Herdman who has been held for over 42 months without trial.
Herdman, who worked for Canadian Sky ECC distributor LevUp, was arrested by Spanish police in June 2021 despite agreeing to cooperate with US law enforcement officials investigating Sky ECC as part of a “proffer agreement”.
LevUp claimed to be the smallest of four major distributors that operated for Sky Global, accounting for only 4% of its market share.
The Canadian businessman is charged in France with 22 offences, which he denies, including laundering the proceeds from the importation of drugs by organised crime as a result of distributing Sky ECC encrypted phones, and the lesser charge of supplying cryptographic equipment without properly declaring it.
A grand jury in the Southern District of California originally indicted Herdman and Sky Global’s Eap in March 2021. The indictment accuses the executives of racketeering and knowingly facilitating the import and distribution of illegal drugs through the sale of encrypted communications devices.
In Holland, the investigation into Sky ECC cryptophone distributors is being conducted by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), which investigates financial crimes, the National Investigation and Interventions Unit, which investigates serious and organised crime and the Dutch National Police.
The distributors arrested in Spain are due to be extradited to the Netherlands. The two distributors arrested in Holland were released on bail on 30 January 2025.
