Almost three years after the decryption of the Sky ECC messaging system, the milestone of one thousand convictions as part of the "crime of the century" case was passed this week.
Until several years ago, Belgian crime lords slept soundly at night due to the Canadian company Sky ECC which sold expensive custom phones equipped with a special encrypted messaging service.
However, in February and March 2021, the authorities cracked the encrypted app, dealing unprecedented blows to the organised crime world. They gained access to the six million messages being sent per day between major criminals and the people they exploited, including port workers but also police officers and lawyers. It quickly became clear that parts of the legal upper world had been corrupted.
This was followed by several of the largest police operations to have ever taken place in Belgium, with cocaine, weapons, money and vehicles being seized, and hundreds of people being arrested. The result of the Federal Judicial Police's extensive crackdown on organised crime now passed a major milestone, passing the mark of 1,000 convictions, Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt announced on Friday.
"In the Sky ECC files, prosecutions and convictions of major drug criminals are a constant stream," he said. "Every week, we are dealing with new cases, new defendants, new trials and new convictions." Van Tigchelt noted that the number of prosecutions and convictions gained solid momentum over the past year, as at the start of 2023, the number was just 344.
Severe prison sentences
These convictions are spread across 81 cases, representing an average of around 12 convicts per trial. More than half of the 1,000 convicts filed appeals. "This is not surprising given the very severe prison sentences handed down in certain cases," he said.
It is expected that this figure will increase significantly as the number of initiated cases and identified suspects and summonses is still increasing every day.
Investigations are already underway against 3,627 suspects in 575 cases initiated, and for another 622 people, a date has been set for their trial. This coming Monday, the postponed ENCRO trial will start with 129 defendants, charged with criminal organisation, drug and arms trafficking and other offences.
To deal with the large number of new cases, the prosecutor's office and the court were reinforced with 61 people working on Sky ECC cases in early 2021.
Van Tigchelt stressed that this not only results in taking many drug criminals off the streets, but it also shows those who want to follow in their footsteps that a career within the environment will "sooner or later end in failure".
