Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - Because she is said to have traded 340 kilograms of marijuana and four kilograms of cocaine, a 31-year-old woman in Düsseldorf has had to answer to a court since Tuesday. The accused is said to have made her deals with a crypto cell phone until French investigators managed to decrypt the EncroChat communication and they found out about her. At the start of the process, the woman was silent on the allegations.
Between the end of March and mid-June 2020, she and an accomplice are said to have transacted more than one million euros in drug deals in just under three months. The money was confiscated by investigators. The woman was arrested in early May of this year. Now she is accused of large-scale gang drug trafficking. Before she came to Düsseldorf, she is said to have worked for a construction company in Freiburg.
At the start of the trial, her defense attorney objected to the use of wiretapping protocols: "They were collected independently of suspicion during wiretapping measures by French authorities and that is not permissible under German law." However, the Federal Court of Justice had declared the use of the EncroChat data to be permissible.
In spring 2020, French authorities managed to crack the encrypted communication system. The French subsequently shared the huge data set with European investigators and judicial authorities. This proved to be a very successful strike against organized drug crime and enabled thousands of investigations. Six more days of negotiations are scheduled for the trial until December 22nd.
