The Dutch police have access to over one billion chat messages sent by alleged criminals and have been able to dismantle 60 drugs labs, seize 170 tonnes of cocaine and confiscate 1,000 ‘heavy’ weapons because of the information they contain, the AD reported on Thursday.

The messages were picked up as part of seven separate investigations into encryption services which have resulted in at least 10,000 arrests world wide, the paper said.

The most recent investigation was centred on secured chat service Exclu but the approach started in 2016 when Canada took down the servers used by Nijmegen-based Ennetcom. Investigations into popular encryption services  Pgp safe, IronChat (2018), EncroChat (2020), SkyEcc and Anom (2021) then followed.

‘The evidence is there. We just have to find the case to go with it,’ police chief Oscar Dros told the paper. ‘This is the gamechanger.’