The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) is due to rule later this month on whether or not a warrant to intercept data on the EncroChat encrypted phone network was obtained legally by the National Crime Agency’s (NCA’s) Operation Venetic, which has led to the convictions of 500 people in the UK.
Another 1,000 are awaiting trial on the basis of EncroChat messages and The Epoch Times has spoken to four people whose lives have become entangled in Operation Venetic.
Hatice Osman is pregnant with her boyfriend Mehmet Yildirim’s child.
Yildirim was arrested in north London in the spring of 2022 and has been charged with conspiracy to supply around 20 kilos of Class A drugs.
He was not found in possession of any drugs or money and the police have not disclosed any other evidence against him but they have attributed five EncroChat handles to him.
Osman told The Epoch Times: “There was no surveillance, no money, no drugs. Nothing. The only thing the police have is cellsite evidence and EncroChat messages.”
Yildirim denies ever having an EncroChat device and Osman said the person sending and receiving the messages about drugs was not her boyfriend.
She said the real culprit could have been one of several labourers who had been carrying out building work at Osman’s premises in the spring and summer of 2020.
Osman said one of the labourers was a Turkish national who has since returned to Turkey, but she said the NCA was not interested in him and had convinced itself Yildirim was guilty.
‘They’re Trying to Break him, to Make him Plead Guilty’
Osman said: “Mehmet’s trial was due to be in January but it has now been put off until October 2023. He is on remand in prison and the pressure on him is intense. They’re trying to break him, trying to make him plead guilty. He’s afraid of getting 20 years if he pleads not guilty and is convicted. But he is innocent.”Most EncroChat cases would be fatally undermined if the tribunal upholds the appeal and sets aside the warrant, but only if the defendants have maintained their innocence throughout. Those who plead guilty will not be able to appeal.
Osman said: “I am unable to visit him more than once a month and I’m having to comfort him a lot and it has put a lot of strain on the relationship. I’m concerned about his mental health.”
She said her boyfriend suffered a brain injury a few years ago, which left him vulnerable, but she said his only crime was to be “too trusting” and she said: “He realised he was being used, but not at what level. He keeps repeating to me, ‘They’re not my friends.’”
Osman said Yildirim’s family were not impressed by the initial legal advice they received and had now hired a top barrister to advise him on how to defend himself.
Osman said: “Mehmet has no convictions. He doesn’t even have any points on his driving licence. In fact he has given evidence for the police in the past. And he hates drugs. When we first met I used to smoke weed and within two weeks he had made me quit.”
Yildirim’s brother, Hakan, said the evidence linking his brother to the EncroChat devices was very circumstantial and did not stand up to close examination.
He told The Epoch Times: “The attribution is a shambles. It’s absolutely crazy. There was no drugs or money found and my brother was not living the lifestyle of a drug dealer. If he is this guy where is his money? He is a vulnerable person with a brain injury.”
Hakan said his brother had asked him to research what sentence he might get if he pleads guilty, even though he is innocent.
“He wonders if it’s worth it to plead not guilty. Twenty years is a life-changing amount of time to serve. He would miss his child growing up. That’s the calculation he is making from the pressure they are putting him under,” said Hakan.
It is a common refrain from those on remand awaiting trial on EncroChat charges.
Judges around the country dealing with EncroChat cases have been handing out sentences of up to 25 years for those who plead not guilty to supplying Class A drugs but are convicted.
Billy Caldwell is on remand in one of Scotland’s toughest prisons awaiting trial on charges of supplying drugs, based on EncroChat evidence.
His brother Jimmy Caldwell said: “He has been charged with being part of a serious organised crime group. The group did have seizures but Billy was not found with an Encro phone, drugs, or money. They are attributing an EncroChat handle to him and the evidence against him is just three bits of conversation.”
Jimmy Caldwell said, “One of them is someone saying happy birthday, but it’s three days before his actual birthday.”
Caldwell maintains he is completely innocent of the crimes he has been charged with and his brother said there was no surveillance linking him to the drug seizures or any witnesses who identified him as being part of the gang.
He has been on remand in prison for the best part of 18 months and still no trial date has been set.
The custody time limits have been extended three times, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and then the barristers’ strike.
Jimmy Caldwell said: “He has still not seen all the evidence against him. In Scotland it’s different to England and the prosecution does not have to disclose everything until the trial.”
‘There Is So Much Pressure on People to Buckle’
Jimmy Caldwell said there were many people like his brother for whom the only evidence against them is chat logs on EncroChat that have been attributed to them.He said: “There is so much pressure on people to buckle. They are innocent until forced to plead guilty.”
Lawyers for 10 individuals who were targeted said the NCA knew the French gendarmerie’s hack of EncroChat, known as Operation Emma, was a live intercept—something the NCA deny—and should have requested a Targeted Interception warrant instead, but knew it would not have allowed the evidence from the encrypted devices to be used in UK courts.
Jimmy Caldwell said he believed the warrant would eventually be set aside and he said: “I think the IPT will say Leveson was misled. If they did that would be end of the NCA. I think there will be a reach-around. Maybe they will try to blame the French. Or maybe it will end up going to the UK Supreme Court.”
But he said while those who were still facing trial would be freed, those who had pleaded guilty would have no recourse to appeal.
Frankie King, from Yorkshire, is out on bail pending a retrial after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in his first trial. Some of his co-defendants were jailed for up to 20 years for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.
King, who was arrested in June 2020, told The Epoch Times: “When I went to court I didn’t know any of the others on trial. I‘d never seen them before. They found no Encro phone on me but they said I had one. They have created a ’virtual pact' with the others. My barrister says I was just collateral to get the others.”
He added: “They said I had an Encro phone. It’s not my phone. They attributed it to me because there is a picture on that phone that is linked to me. But it doesn’t prove anything.”
‘It’s Like Living in a Banana Republic’
King said: “The guilty should be punished but it’s morally wrong to break the law to uphold the law, which is what the National Crime Agency have done. It’s like living in a banana republic.”John Bennett, from the north of England, is also awaiting the conclusion of the legal process in his case.
He was accused of being part of a gang dealing drugs in the north of England but he told The Epoch Times: “I wasn’t arrested with drugs or an EncroChat phone. They found £2,000 in my house but I worked for that.”
Bennett said he had been wrongly attributed as the owner of an EncroChat handle, which was part of the drugs conspiracy.
A National Crime Agency spokesman said they were not commenting on Operation Venetic or the IPT hearing.
But in July 2020 the NCA’s director of investigations, Nikki Holland, said: “Together we’ve protected the public by arresting middle-tier criminals and the kingpins, the so-called iconic untouchables who have evaded law enforcement for years, and now we have the evidence to prosecute them.”
Holland—who was suspended for alleged misconduct in March 2022—said, “This is the broadest and deepest ever UK operation into serious organised crime.”
