Berlin Prosecutors’ Office Has Handled Over 600 Cases Linked to EncroChat
The Berlin Prosecutors’ Office has been leading 605 investigations related to the encrypted communication service EncroChat, according to the latest statistics. The cases, which date back to 2020, are distributed across different years, with nearly a third of them initiated in 2022. Of the total, 240 cases have been concluded with indictment at large courts, district courts, or criminal courts.
In 117 cases, the investigations were discontinued due to a lack of sufficient evidence. Currently, there are 88 open cases, with 85 being handled by the prosecutors’ office and three by the investigative authorities. The office emphasizes that the statistics only refer to investigations, not to so-called complexes of investigation. A single investigation can involve multiple charges and accused individuals. Furthermore, individual investigations were sometimes combined or separated, leading to statistical discrepancies compared to the numbers provided by the Federal Criminal Police.
EncroChat was a preferred means of communication for criminal groups for years, until European investigators infiltrated the network in the spring of 2020 and secured millions of chat protocol records. The analysis of these data has since served as the basis for hundreds of investigations, including those in Berlin, particularly in the areas of drug-related crime, money laundering and armed gang crime.