A former Liverpool youth footballer has been jailed for supplying medicine after a decide dominated that messages and knowledge harvested by police from the EncroChat encrypted telephone community will be lawfully used as proof within the case.
The case, referred to as Embossed II, was the “lead case” in a long-running authorized argument over whether or not proof obtained by French police from the EncroChat encrypted telephone community is legally admissible within the UK courts. Jamie Cassidy, 46, was jailed for 13 years and three months for collaborating in a big medicine conspiracy, after his actions had been uncovered by messages intercepted from the EncroChat encrypted telephone community.
He was sentenced along with his brother Jonathan Cassidy, 50, from Crosby in Merseyside, and Nasar Ahmed, 51, from Bury, at Manchester Crown Courtroom on 21 March, over their involvement in a big worldwide medicine operation. They pleaded responsible after Choose Nicholas Dean, the recorder of Manchester, discovered that messages obtained from the EncroChat encrypted telephone community might be lawfully used as proof within the case.
Dean additionally cleared the Nationwide Crime Company and Crown prosecutors of “abuse of course of” and dismissed arguments from defence attorneys that the company had intentionally did not disclose technical proof wanted by professional witnesses employed by the defendants.
The three males had been arrested in 2020 after French police hacked into the EncroChat encrypted telephone community and handed on messages to the Nationwide Crime Company, which led to their identification as contributors in an operation to import and distribute cocaine within the UK. It was a part of a wider operation that led to French police acquiring 115 million messages from an estimated 60,000 customers of EncroChat telephones worldwide.
Police forces and legislation enforcement companies within the UK have made greater than 3,100 arrests, convicted 1,500 offenders, recovered over 9 tonnes of Class A medication, and seized 3,500 rounds of ammunition and £84m in money, in response to figures from Larger Manchester Police.
In a written ruling on 18 March that may now be reported, Choose Dean mentioned there was little doubt {that a} huge quantity of information was retrieved, and that the fabric, if admissible, implicates these proved to have used the handsets to ship and obtain messages in severe crime. “No matter else, this isn’t a case of flawed or corrupted software program giving the looks of people being concerned in legal exercise,” he mentioned.
Storage vs transmission
The case is the most recent to handle the query of whether or not EncroChat proof will be lawfully used as proof in courts.
Underneath UK legislation, telephone calls or knowledge intercepted through the course of transmission are prohibited from getting used as proof, and can’t be referred to throughout a courtroom listening to to guard the strategies utilized by intelligence companies and legislation enforcement.
The restriction, nevertheless, doesn’t apply if the identical knowledge is obtained from storage in an digital machine via a hacking – often known as gear interference – operation.
The French have refused to reveal how the infiltration operation towards EncroChat was carried out, citing defence secrecy.
Prosecutors argued that French police contaminated EncroChat telephones with a software program implant that obtained the supposedly safe encrypted messages from digital storage in telephone handsets, and had been due to this fact admissible beneath UK legislation.
Legal professionals representing the defendants, nevertheless, argued there was proof that EncroChat messages had been intercepted through the course of transmission, and instructed professional witnesses to reverse-engineer EncroChat telephones to find how the interception course of labored.
The defence arguments had been dismissed by Dean in a ruling dated 18 March that discovered EncroChat messages had been intercepted at a time they had been “saved in or by the (telecommunications system)”, quite than through the course of transmission.
He mentioned the problem had been litigated no less than twice, together with throughout two preparatory hearings that had been scrutinised by the Courtroom of Attraction.
Temporary storage remains to be storage
In response to submissions made by the French authorities to the European Courtroom of Human Rights in April 2020, the French police used a “particular investigative method” to bypass EncroChat encryption that was able to recording key strokes, capturing display photographs, and accessing and accumulating knowledge contained in a “digital terminal”.
The decide mentioned an analogy used within the French submission, which in contrast the hacking operation to a search of a constructing containing unlawful gadgets resembling medicine or hearth arms, is constant solely with the French authorities concerning all the info as having been collected from storage in handsets.
The French implant collected knowledge in two levels. Throughout stage 1, either side agreed the implant retrieved historic knowledge, resembling undeleted messages, from storage in a database on the EncroChat handsets.
Stage 2 was extra controversial. Defence attorneys argued that proof confirmed messages had been captured reside or in actual time, through the course of transmission, whereas prosecutors argued the messages had been obtained from storage within the telephone handsets.
The decide concluded that references to “reside” or “real-time” interception in proof offered through the case referred to knowledge captured and picked up from storage earlier than it was transmitted to the French authorities. Any “storage” earlier than the implant collected the info could be “very transient”, however “very transient storage remains to be storage”.
Abuse of course of
Defence attorneys argued that the defendants didn’t have the chance to current professional proof on how the EncroChat proof was obtained. They mentioned the Crown had intentionally restricted the disclosure of technical proof, and delayed or hid disclosure of proof to stop the defendants discovering how EncroChat knowledge was intercepted.
The decide mentioned there have been parts of the Crown’s strategy to disclosure that had been lower than optimum, and that “some criticism” of its conduct just isn’t misplaced, however that there was “no misconduct”.
Between March 2022 and March 2023, defence attorneys requested the NCA to reveal technical info and contaminated EncroChat telephones to help an professional witness, Ross Anderson, professor of safety engineering at Cambridge College, and later, Czeck firm Invasys, to reverse-engineer the implant.
The method uncovered “disclosure issues” and revealed a “typically sub-optimal strategy by the Crown”, however the decide discovered that failures in disclosure had been a consequence of the size of the EncroChat circumstances within the UK and the early distribution of EncroChat knowledge to disparate police forces.
Public curiosity immunity
Dean issued an order requiring the NCA and prosecutors to reveal two EncroChat telephones and the method utilized by the NCA to extract EncroChat APK information from the telephone to defence consultants to help their understanding of how the telephones labored, on 13 March 2020.
Prosecutors utilized for Public Curiosity Immunity (PII) on 13 April, and on 17 Could, the decide issued an order to stop the disclosure of the APK method and the contaminated handsets. The PII ruling additionally prevented the disclosure of latest info that, in response to prosecutors, “definitively establishes that the EncroChat materials was … intercepted, at a time when it was saved on the related EncroChat handsets”.
Dean wrote in his ruling on 18 March: “Though I agree that there’s all the time one thing unsatisfactory about any trial course of through which related proof can’t be deployed, unsatisfactory just isn’t unfair.”
Simon Csoka KC, defending, had instructed the courtroom the NCA and CPS had championed an at-best obstructive and at-worst dishonest strategy to disclosure. The decide acknowledged that Csoka didn’t make these assertions gratuitously, however had pointed to proof he described as a CPS technique of dishonesty and obfuscation.
The decide discovered that the proof was not in line with a “malign and illegal technique”, however quite with a prosecution group discussing and typically combating the complexities of the EncroChat investigation and prosecution, and with the “sheer scale of their activity”.
No oral proof heard
Choose Dean rejected calls from defence attorneys to listen to oral proof through the trial from Emma Sweeting, the intelligence operations supervisor on the NCA, Luke Shrimpton, a former NCA senior technical professional, and Jeremy Decou, an officer on the French Gendarmerie.
The decide discovered that Emma Sweeting and Jeremy Decou had been largely reporting issues that they had been instructed by others in written proof in regards to the French hacking operation, however rejected claims by defence attorneys that they amounted to “a number of rumour” and shouldn’t be admitted.
The decide additionally discovered that any technical proof Shrimpton had given in earlier circumstances was now not useful in figuring out the information related to storage versus transmission, and determined to not contemplate it.
The decide additionally rejected defence arguments {that a} letter of request by CPS to the French asking for clarification of how the implant labored instructed the French what the CPS needed to listen to, and signposted the catastrophic penalties of giving a solution that didn’t help the Crown’s case that EncroChat messages had been taken from storage.
Defence attorneys additionally argued that the French reply intentionally answered a unique query with a purpose to keep away from telling an outright lie. The decide mentioned that the argument was “fanciful”.
Main junior scorer at Liverpool FC
Jamie Cassidy had been a number one scorer for Liverpool Soccer Membership’s under-16s, and was described as a prodigy earlier than his profession was lower quick with accidents.
The courtroom heard that Jamie Cassidy had been drawn right into a conspiracy to import giant portions of medicine by his brother, Jonathan Cassidy.
The three males used nameless handles on EncroChat. Jonathan Cassidy used “whiskywasp”, Amed used “dottetdaw” and Cassidy used “nucleardog”.
The courtroom heard that Jonathan Cassidy had joked that he shared the identical birthday as El Chapo, a medicine kingpin featured in an episode of Narcos.
Nasar Ahmed admitted appearing as a cash switch agent for offers organized by Jonathan Cassidy to import cocaine to the UK from the Netherlands.
The courtroom heard that in April 2020, Ahmed switched from an EncroChat telephone to a different encrypted telephone, Sky ECC, amid issues EncroChat might have been compromised. He was arrested at his dwelling on 15 June 2020, two days after the directors of EncroChat put out a warning that the community had been infiltrated and was now not safe.
Jonathan Cassidy flew to Dubai after studying about Ahmed’s arrest, the place he thought of shopping for a villa with a finances of £2.3m, which he meant to furnish with a £22,000 mattress. He was arrested at Manchester Airport when he returned to England in October 2020.
Detectives estimated that Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed had been concerned in importing near £26m of medicine to the UK.
Sentencing, Dean mentioned that though EncroChat telephones had been utilized by organised crime teams, there have been comparatively unfastened ties between Ahmed and Jonathan Cassidy. “It might not be correct to say that Jonathon Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed had been a part of an organised crime group,” he added. “They had been working independently, however to their joint mutual profit.”
The decide mentioned Jamie Cassidy had a extra restricted involvement within the drug conspiracy. The courtroom heard that he labored as a jail listener with the Samaritans.
Tenacious authorized problem
Wayne Johns, the NCA’s Operation Venetic senior investigating officer, mentioned: “The Cassidy brothers and Ahmed pleaded responsible on this case after years of tenaciously difficult the legality of the case towards them. The NCA and Crown Prosecution Service labored with GMP to robustly defend the problem, and we now see the trio the place they belong.”
Detective Constable Marc Walby from the Larger Manchester Police Severe Organised Crime Group mentioned the three males had been from the higher echelons of organised criminals that function in Larger Manchester.
“Jonathan Cassidy and his colleagues obtained far too snug with their encrypted telephones and started bragging about their private lives, however this simply confirmed what we already knew about them,” he mentioned. “Satirically, it was this bravado and these messages which have landed them in jail for a very long time.
“This has been a long-running and sophisticated case, and I want to thank the NCA and CPS for his or her pursuit in defending the authorized challenges related to this case. With out, these convictions might not have been potential.”
Jonathan Cassidy of Whitewood Park, Liverpool, was jailed for 21 years and 9 months for conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to provide cocaine, and conspiracy to hide, switch and disguise legal proceeds. Nasar Ahmed of Moreton Drive, Bury, was jailed for 21 years and 9 months for conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to provide cocaine, and conspiracy to hide, switch and disguise legal proceeds. Jamie Cassidy of Knowsley Lane, Knowsley, was jailed for 13 years and three months for conspiracy to provide cocaine, and conspiracy to hide, switch and disguise legal proceeds.
A manhunt is underway for an additional suspect, Joshua Avis, who absconded throughout pre-trial hearings.