A multinational law enforcement operation in Europe shuttered an encrypted chat app Exclu, allegedly favored by organized crime, arresting four dozen individuals including the app’s owners and administrators.
German authorities say they decrypted messages exchanged on the app, which they began investigating in June 2020. Police from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Poland participated in the operation.
Authorities say about 3,000 users signed up to Exclu, paying an 800-euro license fee for six months of access. The app came to German authorities’ attention following a 2019 raid on a former Cold War-era fortified military bunker in the German town of Traben-Trarbach, then used as a web hosting facility by an outfit that called itself Cyberbunker, or CB3ROB. Cyberbunker hosted dark websites and, German police say, the Exclu back-end.
Dutch police say raids made as part of the crackdown also found two drug labs, a cocaine-processing facility, several kilos of drugs, firearms and 4 million euros in cash. Dutch speakers amounted to 750 users of the app’s user base, they also say.
