Chat Control - conferenza stampa su Europol su una azione congiunta internazionale

Trascrizione e sintesi gen ai.

Il testo riporta la trascrizione di una conferenza stampa tenuta da Europol e altre agenzie di polizia internazionali per annunciare lo smantellamento di una piattaforma di comunicazione criptata chiamata "Ghost", utilizzata da gruppi criminali organizzati.

Punti chiave:

- L'operazione ha coinvolto 9 paesi e ha portato all'arresto di numerosi criminali.

- La piattaforma Ghost era utilizzata per traffico di droga, armi, violenza e riciclaggio di denaro su scala internazionale.

- Sono stati sequestrati ingenti quantità di droga, armi e denaro.

- L'operazione ha dimostrato l'importanza della collaborazione internazionale tra forze dell'ordine.

- Europol ha coordinato gli sforzi, fornendo supporto tecnico e operativo.

- Si prevede che l'indagine porterà a ulteriori arresti e condanne nei prossimi anni.

- Le autorità sottolineano che continueranno a contrastare l'uso criminale di piattaforme di comunicazione criptate.

La conferenza ha visto la partecipazione di rappresentanti di vari paesi coinvolti (Francia, USA, Australia, Irlanda, Canada, Svezia, Italia) che hanno illustrato il loro contributo all'operazione e i risultati ottenuti nei rispettivi paesi.

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Close it. It's it. Good morning and thank you for joining us today.

My name is Katherine de Boller. I am the executive director of Europol. It's great to see a full room and I would also like to acknowledge those tuning in from all across the globe on this live stream.

The international audience reflects the global impact of today's announcement. We are here to announce a major breakthrough in our ongoing battle on serious and organized crime. Criminals thought they would and could hide behind technology to coordinate drugs and weapons trafficking, extreme violence and money laundering across borders.

But today we are making it clear, no matter how advanced the technology, no matter how secure they think their communications are, we will find them and we will shut down their criminal activities. This operation shows what we can achieve when we work together. Law enforcement from nine countries, alongside Europol and Eurojust, combined their expertise, resources and intelligence to take down this encrypted communication platform that was shielding criminal networks.

Today, representatives from a number of these countries will take the stage to share their results and insights. In fact, the stage isn't big enough to fit everyone who contributed to this success. So some of our partners are joining us from the audience.

I want to thank all our partners who have been part of this operation for their dedication and hard work. To the teams here at Europol whove worked tirelessly. Thank you for your commitment.

This is what coordinated international law enforcement looks like, and it works. Weve shown that when we pool resources, when we pool our expertise and our efforts, theres nowhere for these criminals to hide. Our work doesnt stop here.

This operation is part of our ongoing commitment to tackling organised crime wherever it operates. Its my pleasure now to pass the floor to our first speaker from the french gendarmerie who will provide further details on the achievement of this operation. Thank you.

Good morning everyone. My name is Bertrand Michel. I'm the deputy head of French Jean Armoury.

National Cyber unit, which includes the c three n as its operational division. Since the takedown of Encroachat in 2020, the landscape of encrypted communications has become highly dynamic and segmented, posing ongoing challenges for law enforcement. But the encroached case enable us to develop the skills, both judicial and technical, to handle this kind of complex cases against serious organized crime groups operating at a global level.

When the Swedish Cyber Crime center first identified the ghost ECC network and reached out to us national cyber unit, the c three n immediately joined the effort and initiated our own judicial case under the supervision of a prosecutor's office in charge of sales and agonist crime. The french journal coup this legal framework offered us the opportunity to engage the world spectrum of our capacities. Judicial capacities.

First, investigative measures have been implemented, including online undercover investigations and deployment throughout Europe to gather evidence. We also contribute with all your partners to the action days here in your polit quarters. Technical capacities the French Ministry of Anti sub express command provided technical resources to the Joint Investigation team through its European Commission funded project overclock across all aspects of the investigation, notably in terms of decryption advanced skills.

I would like to personally thank the involvement of this technical department. Thanks to their expertise, we were able to intercept, retrieve and ultimately share data exchange by criminal users on the Ghost platform with our operation task force partners and affected countries. Thanks to Europol's operating task force program and with the support of Eurojust, we have had the opportunity to set up a secure and efficient working environment, both legally and technically.

Thanks to the commitment of Europol, our joint investigation team partners from the FBI and other OTF members, the data that we collected against the Ghost TCC solution was then shared efficiently and securely with affected countries, allowing them to initiate cases and achieve operational and concrete results. Although the Gauss solution was not used in french soil, we are glad that France could contribute to this global effort in fighting organized crime worldwide. It is the French Jean Anne Marie national cyber unit privilege and duty to take an active part in the fight against cyber enabled serious organized crime and contribute to make Europe and the world safer.

Thank you for your attention. Thank you, sir. And thank you, Madam Director.

My name is Brendan Dunfer. I'm a supervisory special agent with the US FBI. I'm the assistant legal attache out here in the Hague, Netherlands, and I can sit here at Europol.

I would like to say that the FBI is committed to partnering with its allies, including Europol, Eurojust, all the members represented at this table and of the operational task force in the fight against these encrypted communication platforms. Such platforms have an outsized impact on facilitating criminal activity around the world, warranting a worldwide response by law enforcement. As you see here, the FBI stands by all its partners in the future fight against organized crime to include combating encrypted communication platforms used for criminal activity.

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is assistant commissioner David McLean.

I am representing the Australian Federal Police and the international command in particular. And it's my great pleasure and privilege to be here today on behalf of Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reese Kershaw. It's my pleasure and responsibility to be here today in the Hague, not only to acknowledge the powerful impact of law enforcement collaboration and cooperation.

But to acknowledge the roles played by our partners and to thank them personally for the work that we've put in front of the public today. The borderless nature of organised crime is a challenge. That much is a fact.

However, the fact that we're here today at Europol, speaking to an international audience, is also proof that international law enforcement's combined determination, resources and capability have never been greater, have never been more effective and have never been more damaging to transnational serious and organised crime. And I'll share another fact. Today's announcement won't be our last.

Our work isn't done. However, today I would like to congratulate everyone who has contributed to the success, I beg your pardon, of OTF next, and what we refer to in Australia as Operational Kraken. Our contribution commenced in 2022 when the AFP joined Europol's global task force.

Operational Task Force Next, which you are now aware, was established to disrupt the ghost dedicated, encrypted communications platform. Our response in Australia was to establish Operation Kraken, which had two key goals, the first being to help take down the ghost platform, and secondly, to bring its administrator, a 32 year old australian man from New South Wales, to account. As a result of our efforts, we will allege hundreds of criminals, including italian organised crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, Middle Eastern organised crime and korean organised crime, have been using Ghost in Australia and overseas to import illicit drugs and to order the killing of individuals involved in various criminal enterprises.

Significantly, during our investigation, the AFP and local partners prevented the death and serious injury of as many 50 individuals in Australia, all by virtue of our access to messages on the ghost platform. And while there are 50 people alive today as the result of our work, there are another 50 people in Australia, users of the ghost platform, who are now facing criminal charges. It is very difficult to capture the complexity of this operation or the scale of the international law enforcement cooperation involved.

In a few short words, however, it would be very, very accurate, very fair to say that I'm incredibly proud of the role that everyone has played, and of course, the AFP and the australian contribution in particular. Finally, I want to thank you, Catherine and Jean Philippe, for your leadership, Europol's leadership, the FBI and the french gendarmes for their critical role and ingenuity, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Swedish Police Authority, the Dutch National Police, the Irish Guards, the Italian Central Directorate for Anti Drug Service and the icelandic police for your collective dedication and commitment. Thank you all for making Australia and the world a safer place.

Thank you. Good morning, my name is Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly of unguardist Yukona, Ireland's national policing and security service. I would like to talk to you this morning about Ireland's involvement in this operational task force coordinated by Europol.

This was a multinational coalition involving nine countries, including, I'm proud to say, Ireland. I have responsibility for our response to organize and serious crime. One of our key strategies in Ireland is to prioritize high value targets, not only those who direct and participate in organised crime, but also those who enhance and facilitate it.

And this strategy aligns well with what we have undertaken in this particular operation. The primary organised crime groups operating on the island of Ireland are transnational in nature. In fact, some of those in the inflicting harm in our communities purposely base themselves abroad to try and thwart the efforts of irish law enforcement.

So it is vital that we have a coordinated international policing response, which I think you can clearly see is demonstrated here today. In fact, our commissioner, Drew Harris, often says that it takes a network to defeat a network. Encrypted phone communication is indeed a challenge for contemporary policing, but one which we are now making significant inroads into.

Ireland had the second largest user base of this particular encrypted platform. So the success of this operation is of particular significance to us. During this operation, we targeted four irish organized crime groups who are involved in drugs trafficking, frequently using violence and intimidation to enforce their illicit trade.

Most significantly, we have dismantled a primary drugs trafficking route into our country and in doing so, have seized drugs with an approximate street value of €16 million. We deployed over 300 specialist officers and searched 33 premises across the country during this operation. We were joined in Ireland during the day of resolution by police and colleagues from the Australian Federal Police, the FBI from the United States and Europol, once again demonstrating the international dimension of this operation.

Our activity to date has resulted in eleven arrests and the seizure of €350,000 in cash, and I can assure you that there will indeed be further arrests. During our operation, we also targeted the key facilitators of this encrypted phone network and, importantly, seized a number of the suspect handsets. This activity demonstrates our resolve to make Ireland a difficult environment for organised crime to operate.

We will continue to use every opportunity, technology and resource at our disposal to protect our communities from the harm inflicted by these criminals. I would like to sincerely thank all my international colleagues, Eurojust and Europol, for their steadfast work and support to us in Ireland. I would also like to recognise our colleagues in the Revenue Commissioners Customs Service, who are of great assistance.

I would also like to thank all the dedicated police officers at home in Ireland, many of whom who work unknown in the background, for all their efforts during operations such as this. These men and women at times put themselves in harm's way to protect us from the scourge of organised crime, and this is deeply appreciated. I would like to finish by committing that Ireland and Angarda Sir Kona will continue to seek out opportunities such as this to work with our international partners to disrupt, degrade and dismantle transnational organized crime groups.

Thank you. Good morning everyone. My name is Mariev Lavallee and I am the assistant criminal operations officer in charge of the organized crime program for the role Canadian Mounted Police, Eastern Region federal policing.

I am very happy to add my voice to those of my colleagues from the many other countries involved in this large scale investigation. International cooperation is vital in staying ahead of organized crime. We, the rural Canadian Mounted Police, work in close collaboration with our partners to share our technical knowledge and our intelligence.

Our shared goal is to target the most dangerous criminal groups who threatens our citizens regardless of where they are in the world. Since March 2022, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit conducted the canadian component of this very complex investigation under the name of Project Cyborg. The RCMP's high level organized crime investigators and cybercrime specialists have pioneered the acquisition of DADA.

This technique allowed investigators to seize the digital evidence that was essential for all members of the OTF. The operational task force set up for this investigation is unique and it demonstrates Canada's willingness to team up with its allies to pool our knowledge and to tackle this major issue. Collaboration enables us to innovate with modern investigation techniques to intercept, locate and decrypt messages linked to illicit activities on hardened, secure communication platforms.

Like our counterparts, we continue to prioritize and dedicate significant resources to combating the use of these platforms by criminal organization. We will continue to track around the world those who think they can escape justice. I would like to thank every one of you, all the countries involved, for your contribution to this major investigation, and I hope to see the results of other productive collaborations in the near future.

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jean Philippe Lecouf.

I am Europol's deputy executive director for operations. What we are announcing here today is not about one country or one agency. You have understood that it's about a global network of dedicated law enforcement and judicial professionals coming together to take down those who thought they could operate above the law.

This operation represents over three years of hard work. Europol teamed up with law enforcement from nine countries and judicial authority. And Eurojust to dismantle a tool that was a lifeline for serious and organized crime.

This tool enabled drug trafficking, weapons dealing, extreme violence, money laundering on industrial scale, picture servers hidden away in France and Iceland, company owners on opposite ends of the globe in Australia, and financial trains leading straight to the United States. This was a truly global game of cat and mouse. And today the game is up.

Weve heard about all my colleagues here from the different action and technical interventions that took place throughout the investigation. Let me tell you more about Europols roles in this. The heart of this operation was right here at Europol.

Our job was to make sure that every pieces of the puzzle was in place and that exactly what we did. We have been down this road before. Europol has become the go to place for international law enforcement cooperation when it comes to taking down criminal encrypted platforms.

We've built on the successes and lessons learned to from previous takedowns of similar apps such as Encroach chat or Skyacc. In March 2022, an operational task force was set up at Europol. With this task force we brought here in the Hague investigators from either side of the globe to work hand in hand with Europol experts, drawing on our technical expertise and the capability of our partners.

Together we mapped out the entire global infrastructure of this criminal network, identifying key suppliers and users, and coordinating the takedown actions. Over 40 operational meetings took place, harnessing every pieces of intel and turning it into a coordinated action. It was about bringing together the right people with the right tools and the right expertise, ensuring that every aspect of this complex operation was covered during the action days.

Europol headquarters also became the joint operational centre where all the moving parts came together. This operational center was buzzing with activity, providing twenty four seven real time support and coordination across multiple time zones. We also had Europol experts on the ground in Ireland and in Australia directly supporting the local teams here.

This operation is what Europol is all about, turning collaboration into concrete results. We know how these criminals operate, we know how to find them, and as today shows, we know how to stop them. But let's be clear.

Our fight is unjust against the technology criminal use. Europol and our partner are committed to tackling the criminal misuse of encrypted communication platforms. But we are equally committed to getting the balance right.

It's about building a system that respects privacy while upholding justice. Because we believe in a world where justice and privacy are not opposing forces, but two sides of the same coin. Private companies are part of this story too.

They have the power and the responsibility to ensure their platform are not becoming playgrounds for criminals. We urge these private companies to play their part. Access to communication between suspects is critical for law enforcement.

It's the lifeblood of our operations against serious and organized crime. But make no mistake, we can and do achieve this with strong legal safeguards and judicial oversight. privacy and protection go hand to in hand, and we are committed to ensuring both.

As I stand here today, I am reminded that this success is not just about shutting down a platform, its about shutting down the very idea that crime can operate in the shadows. To our partners across the globe, a very big thank you for your dedication and your hard work. I want also to take a moment to congratulate our teams in Europol.

Here together, we are sending a clear message. No matter how sophisticated the technology, no matter how well hidden the platform, we will bring it down. This is not our first takedown, and you can be sure that is not the last one.

Thank you. Thank you to Deputy excess director Jean Philippe Lecoeuf of Europol. Thank you to all speakers today, turning cooperation into concrete results.

We will come now to the Q and a session. We will set the priority for journalists who made their way to Europol's headquarters in the Hague. We will, after all questions have been answered in the room, also accept questions when you are following us online.

For this, you probably already found out that there's a QR code which will send your questions directly to us. If you ask questions online, please do not forget to give us your media outlet and country which will help us to allocate the question to the right speaker. For now, we would start with questions from the room.

If there are questions, please hands up and name your media outlet. Yes, please. We have a swedish speaker in the room.

We can also answer swedish questions. Maybe if they're. Yeah.

Let's start with the swedish question. Okay. Would like you to ask it in English.

Yeah. If the swedish representative could come join me. Okay.

Hi, Linda. Hello. Hi.

Can you tell me about Sweden's role in this? How did you participate in this operation? Yes. And for judicial reasons. The swedish police has not made any arrests.

But we have been cooperating with the other police authorities from the very beginning. And we have been cooperating with this operation from the very beginning. We have also localized one of the servers and we have shared intelligence with the other participant authorities and countries.

We have contributing to their arrests. And as we all know, organized crime is transnational. To fight organized crime, we must cooperate between the law enforcement agencies in different countries.

And when it comes to the swedish police. Now, what we're going to do is that we are going to the next phase and we will start getting information from the other countries investigations, thanks to this cooperation. So we can expect some arrests in the near future.

We hope so. And we'll see what this information sharing will give us. But I will stress once again that today it's crucial with international cooperation.

The criminals are not swedish criminals only. They are working all over the world. And that's why this international cooperation is so important for the swedish police also.

No matter arrest in Sweden or in other countries. Perfect. Thank you.

Any other questions for the speakers? Then we will move over to online questions. We receive a lot. So maybe a question we can start with General Lecouf, and then if somebody wants to fill in, it's a more general question to start off.

How important or big is this encrypted application compared to anchor chat or Sky EcC? Yeah. Thank you. Well, this network is smaller than what we have seen with Encochat or Skyecc, but it's due also to the adaptation of the criminals, because following these big, let's say, take down of this big app, what we have seen is now that the landscape is much more fragmented.

So we have multiple smaller networks that are used by the criminals, and they use sometimes two or three of them. So the size is smaller, but the footprint is global, as it has been seen. And some very powerful criminal groups, it has been said by our australian, irish, american and canadian colleagues and other countries involved, they are using these apps.

So for us, the size is not the main thing. Sometimes the smaller networks get the most important criminals and the most interesting information for us and for our takedown. Thank you.

There's a related follow up question, which you partly already answered. Will this kind of operation trigger a change in the criminal group's approach to encrypted communication? I guess, yes, for sure. They tried to escape, but to switch from one network to another and so on, but we are after them.

Would another speaker like to answer or speak on this question? Yeah. Thank you. From an australian point of view, we agree very much with John Philippe's point of view.

The size of this particular operation, the scale, it's significant internationally, it's definitely significant in an australian context. But the abiding point, from our point of view, is the criminals involved. The criminal organisations involved decided a long time ago to start playing the dangerous game that they're playing.

Their reality is, their stark reality today is that they simply do not know where and when this team, the broader team, the international law enforcement, will reappear and interfere with those operations. So whilst they continue to do what they do, they definitely run the gauntlets of coming up against Europol, Interpol in all of the associated relationships and partnerships that together to form the community that we're very proud to be part of. Thank you to Australia.

There's a question for France, partly already answered regarding the server. Question is, what the taking down of goes the live intercept and was the server in France hosting it? In case you would like to say something regarding the server, France host a server, but it's not the only country to do that. As I said, our experience of encryptchat allows us to understand faster all these encrypt communications networks works and we are able to contribute to the judicial action in order to intercept data and then to manage them and share with our colleagues.

There was also a survey in Iceland. If you see the various press releases question on sharing data from the ghost investigation with other authorities or countries. Would someone like to comment on this question? Will you share the ghost information with other authorities or countries? Well, if I may say, well, most of the information has already been shared with the interested countries, so we will not announce any follow up or arrest because it's not our tradition to say to the criminals what we are going to do, for obvious reasons.

But there are a lot of information that has already been shared with different partners in different countries. Yes. Thank you.

Deputy Rakhalikov. Question from the Irish Daily Mail. Apparently for Ireland, do you believe the Kinahan crime cartel benefited from the communication platform? Thank you.

So I think it probably wouldn't be appropriate to, I suppose, discuss one particular organized crime group. The question from the Daily Mail. But what I would say is, as I said in my remarks, this was particularly significant for Ireland because we had the second highest number of users.

And just talking about the actual organized criminal groups that we targeted in it, without referring to a specific one, what I would say that they are extremely high value targets. So really important operation for us. So I hope that addresses the question.

Thank you very much. There's a question regarding the mention of the Sacra Corona Unita, an italian organized crime group, in Europol's press release. We have a representative for Vitellia.

Could you take this question? Then I would like to ask you on stage. The question is, Europa's press release mentions an arrest in Italy of a member of a mafia group. So in this case, Saka Coroneta, how significant is this arrest for Italy.

Please join me. Very good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jan, for the question.

Well, we could start saying something that the executive director said before, we will find them. So. And also the deputy director said before, this is a place where we are doing probably the future under the law enforcement investigation.

To reply the question, the only one rest that Italy did is very important, is fundamental for us, because the Sacre Colonita is one of the mafia that we have in Italy, you know, probably better than others, like sicilian mafia, like Dragda from Calabria and like also Camorra from Naples. But we are talking here about a wanted, a man wanted since 2023 made part, I mean, with a big role into the sacre Noida, which is placed in the sub part of Italy in Puglia region. Because of the geography, the closing together with Albania and this area is very fundamental and crucial for this kind of investigation.

So we hope that will be just only a start for new law enforcement cooperation. What Italy did is thanks to, first of all to Europol. So the chain, the line of the command between this agency, all the other partners, members of the RDF and G two together with Italy is fundamental for us.

And squadron mobile from national police in Italy made arrest together with the score under the coordination of the center director for anti drug services. This is something new also under the judicial point of view. So the DNA anti mafia, which coordinated all the activities, you know, Italy is a very complex kind of country, so we need sometimes very kind of complex responses.

I hope to reply the question. Thank you so much to everybody of you and to the other partners for the cooperation. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We're still receiving some questions. One extremely general question on the use of AI in the investigation.

Would any of the speakers have an element on the question if artificial intelligence played a role? It's a rather general question. Not necessarily then question on financial crime. Did the investigation involve crypto or blockchain or cryptocurrencies? Anything? Ireland, please.

Thank you. Yes. So I would like to confirm that in addition to the cash seizures, there was a crypto element, significant crypto element to some of our operational activity.

So we're working through that. Obviously, as everybody here knows, cryptocurrency is a key method that organized crime groups use to move proceeds. So I think to answer the question, yes, there is a crypto element to the irish investigations.

Thank you very much. There are multiple questions going the same direction, partly already answered, but question for all of you, as anchor jet is still leading to convictions today for years later. Do you see this take on equally leading to convictions in the years to come.

It's partly already touched on also by, I think, Sweden. But if somebody wants to say something on potential. Well, I think that if I may answer on this question, I think the judicial authorities, through the joint investigation team between the US and France, but also other judicial authorities, through the cooperation in the framework of Eurojust, has been associated to this case.

So I think that there's a lot that will be done now on the judicial point of view. So it can take time, but I think it's the time that is the normal time for this kind of complex cases where every evidence could be challenged by the lawyers and so on. But it's part of the game, let's say, and our democratic system that any of this investigation can be questioned and answered and discussed first with the investigative judge, but also in front of court.

But we are quite confident on the fact that we have good evidence to go through this process up to convictions. Thank you, Deputy Director Jean Philippe Lecouf. There are a number of questions going in a similar direction, and the answer is obvious because otherwise we wouldn't be here today.

But the question is, can you be sure that there were only criminals using this app? Certainly from an Australia, certainly from an australian point of view, across many months and many, many tens, indeed hundreds of thousands of intercepted modes of communication with no evidence to suggest that this platform was used by other than criminal enterprises. If I can add, well, many, all the messages that we have seen which attracts our interest, was messaging a change between criminals? Sure. So, and if there are some maybe message not exchanged by criminals, they didn't attract our attention on that.

And the use of this kind of platform is really, as it was mentioned, used by mainly criminals. But if somebody is not one, he has been put aside, of course. So there are no more questions coming in online.

If you have a question, you're following us via the live stream. At the last opportunity to send something through, I can already announce that some of the speakers will be available for one on one interviews. The responsibility for setting this up stays with the member states.

We have facilities at Europol in case you need quiet room for those kind of bilateral interviews. I don't see any more online questions, unless one of the speakers would have to make, would like to make a final remark. This is not the case with this.

I thank you for your interest and your attention. I'm closing today's press conference. Thank you very much.

Have a nice day.