The latest takedown follows successful interception of several other criminally used services.
Europol has announced that the Matrix messaging service, made by criminals for criminals, has been taken down in an international operation, led by French and Dutch authorities.
The Matrix encrypted messaging service was first discovered by Dutch authorities on the phone of a criminal convicted for the murder of a Dutch journalist in 2021, crime reporter Peter R de Vries.
The find was the impetus for a major international investigation, and it was discovered that the infrastructure of the Matrix platform was technically more complex than previously uncovered platforms such as Sky ECC and EncroChat. Criminals could only join the service through an invite.
According to Europol, the infrastructure to run Matrix sat on more than 40 servers in several countries, with the key servers found in France and Germany. Cooperation between the Dutch and French authorities started through a joint investigation team.
Utilising innovative technologies, the authorities were able to intercept the messaging service and monitor the activity on the service for three months. More than 2.3m messages in 33 languages were intercepted and deciphered during the investigation according to Europol, many of which are linked to serious crimes such as international drug trafficking, arms trafficking and money laundering.
Yesterday (3 December) a four-country operation saw one suspect arrested in France and his property searched, while in Spain, two were arrested following a European Arrest Warrant from the Netherlands and six properties searched, with another six houses searched in Lithuania.
The main Matrix servers in France and Germany were taken down and the authorities will now have access to a treasure trove of intercepted messages for further investigations, through legal requests.
To support investigations into the illegal activities enabled by Matrix, an Operational Task Force (OTF) was established at Europol in June 2024 between the Netherlands, France, Lithuania, Italy and Spain, and the taskforce has been monitoring criminal activity on the platform ever since.
Europol’s OTF will also provide assistance with any investigations stemming from intelligence gathered during the operation. German authorities lent their technical expertise, with Spanish authorities working closely with their French and Dutch counterparts.
The latest take down follows successful interception of several other criminally used services. In September of this year, Ireland’s police service worked with a global taskforce to take down dangerous criminal platform, Ghost. In April, law enforcement groups from 19 countries – including Ireland – managed to bring down LabHost, one of the world’s largest phishing-as-a-service platforms.
Criminals are expected to turn to custom-built, smaller messaging services, given these successes, but Europol said it was confident that the technological capabilities and international collaboration are now there to tackle these new challenges.
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