A former Liverpool youth footballer has been jailed for supplying medicine after a choose dominated that messages and knowledge harvested by police from the EncroChat encrypted telephone community could be lawfully used as proof within the case.
The case, often called Embossed II, was the “lead case” in a long-running legal 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 participating in a big medicine conspiracy, after his actions had been uncovered by messages intercepted from the EncroChat encrypted telephone community.
He was sentenced together 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 phone network could possibly 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 legal professionals that the company had intentionally didn’t disclose technical proof wanted by knowledgeable 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 members 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 regulation enforcement businesses within the UK have made greater than 3,100 arrests, convicted 1,500 offenders, recovered over 9 tonnes of Class A medicine, and seized 3,500 rounds of ammunition and £84m in money, in line with figures from Higher Manchester Police.
In a written ruling on 18 March that may now be reported, Choose Dean stated there was little question {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 critical crime. “No matter else, this isn’t a case of flawed or corrupted software program giving the looks of people being concerned in felony exercise,” he stated.
Storage vs transmission
The case is the most recent to deal with the question of whether EncroChat evidence can be lawfully used as proof in courts.
Below UK regulation, 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 businesses and regulation enforcement.
The restriction, nevertheless, doesn’t apply if the identical knowledge is obtained from storage in an digital machine by a hacking – also referred to as tools 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 below UK regulation.
Legal professionals representing the defendants, nevertheless, argued there was proof that EncroChat messages had been intercepted through the course of transmission, and instructed knowledgeable 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)”, moderately than through the course of transmission.
He stated the problem had been litigated a minimum of twice, together with throughout two preparatory hearings that had been scrutinised by the Courtroom of Attraction.
Temporary storage continues to be storage
In keeping with 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 gathering knowledge contained in a “digital terminal”.
The choose stated an analogy used within the French submission, which in contrast the hacking operation to a search of a constructing containing unlawful objects reminiscent of medicine or fireplace 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, reminiscent of undeleted messages, from storage in a database on the EncroChat handsets.
Stage 2 was extra controversial. Defence legal professionals 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 choose concluded that references to “reside” or “real-time” interception in proof introduced 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 continues to be storage”.
Abuse of course of
Defence legal professionals argued that the defendants didn’t have the chance to current knowledgeable proof on how the EncroChat proof was obtained. They stated 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 choose stated there have been parts of the Crown’s strategy to disclosure that had been lower than optimum, and that “some criticism” of its conduct is just not misplaced, however that there was “no misconduct”.
Between March 2022 and March 2023, defence legal professionals requested the NCA to reveal technical data and contaminated EncroChat telephones to help an knowledgeable 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 choose discovered that failures in disclosure had been a consequence of the dimensions of the EncroChat instances 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 choose issued an order to stop the disclosure of the APK method and the contaminated handsets. The PII ruling additionally prevented the disclosure of recent data that, in line with 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 at all times one thing unsatisfactory about any trial course of wherein related proof can’t be deployed, unsatisfactory is just not unfair.”
Simon Csoka KC, defending, had advised the courtroom the NCA and CPS had championed an at-best obstructive and at-worst dishonest strategy to disclosure. The choose 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 choose discovered that the proof was not according to a “malign and illegal technique”, however moderately with a prosecution crew discussing and typically scuffling with the complexities of the EncroChat investigation and prosecution, and with the “sheer scale of their job”.
No oral proof heard
Choose Dean rejected calls from defence legal professionals 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 knowledgeable, and Jeremy Decou, an officer on the French Gendarmerie.
The choose discovered that Emma Sweeting and Jeremy Decou had been largely reporting issues that they had been advised by others in written proof in regards to the French hacking operation, however rejected claims by defence legal professionals that they amounted to “a number of rumour” and shouldn’t be admitted.
The choose additionally discovered that any technical proof Shrimpton had given in earlier instances was now not useful in figuring out the information related to storage versus transmission, and determined to not think about it.
The choose additionally rejected defence arguments {that a} letter of request by CPS to the French asking for clarification of how the implant labored advised the French what the CPS wished to listen to, and signposted the catastrophic penalties of giving a solution that didn’t assist the Crown’s case that EncroChat messages had been taken from storage.
Defence legal professionals additionally argued that the French reply intentionally answered a unique query with the intention to keep away from telling an outright lie. The choose stated 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 reduce quick with accidents.
The courtroom heard that Jamie Cassidy had been drawn right into a conspiracy to import massive 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 medication 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.
![](https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed_Source_Greater Manchester Police_mobile.png)
The courtroom heard that in April 2020, Ahmed switched from an EncroChat telephone to a different encrypted telephone, Sky ECC, amid considerations EncroChat could have been compromised. He was arrested at his residence 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 price range of £2.3m, which he supposed 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 stated that though EncroChat telephones had been utilized by organised crime teams, there have been comparatively free ties between Ahmed and Jonathan Cassidy. “It could 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 choose stated 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, stated: “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 Higher Manchester Police Severe Organised Crime Group stated the three males had been from the higher echelons of organised criminals that function in Higher Manchester.
“Jonathan Cassidy and his colleagues obtained far too snug with their encrypted telephones and commenced bragging about their private lives, however this simply confirmed what we already knew about them,” he stated. “Sarcastically, 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 complicated 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 could not have been attainable.”
Jonathan Cassidy of Whitewood Park, Liverpool, was jailed for 21 years and 9 months for conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to produce cocaine, and conspiracy to hide, switch and disguise felony proceeds. Nasar Ahmed of Moreton Drive, Bury, was jailed for 21 years and 9 months for conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to produce cocaine, and conspiracy to hide, switch and disguise felony proceeds. Jamie Cassidy of Knowsley Lane, Knowsley, was jailed for 13 years and three months for conspiracy to produce cocaine, and conspiracy to hide, switch and disguise felony proceeds.
A manhunt is underway for one more suspect, Joshua Avis, who absconded throughout pre-trial hearings.