14 DAY TRIAL // Dutch law enforcement, in cooperation with government agencies from other countries, has forced Ennetcom, a Dutch company providing encryption communications for mobile devices, to shut down its operations, three days ago, on April 19.
Ennetcom bitterly announced its clients about the government's decision by means of a popup showed on its website. The popup's text reads:
“ Tuesday, April 19th, 2016 revealed that judicial research is being done towards Ennetcom. There has been an international collaboration of various government agencies and Interpol in attempt to put our network down. Previously there have been attempts to put us down, amongst them the Dutch intelligence service, but they never succeeded (see Wikileaks). Regarding the current investigation, Ennetcom is forced to suspend all operations and services for the time being. Ennetcom regrets this course of events and insinuations towards Ennetcom. It should be clear that Ennetcom stands for freedom of privacy! Because of security and privacy reasons Ennetcom chooses to keep all systems offline. ”
Following this announcement, the company's network was closed down, and clients weren't able to carry out any type of data transfers. Ennetcom had around 19,000 registered users.Ennetcom accused of helping drug dealers
Ennetcom (Encrypted Network Communications) is a mobile network that relays all its traffic via BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) using its PGP encryption system that the company calls Mobile Encryption Gateway. Additionally, customers also have to purchase specialized handsets to access the Ennetcom network.
The company claims that "it is impossible to intercept and decrypt any data that is sent from one handset to another." According to Dutch media, this is the reason the company's operations were suspended. [UPDATE: Confirmed by a statement from Dutch police, who also said they arrested Ennetcom CEO Danny Manupassa, 36, for 14 days.]
Dutch and international law enforcement agencies are saying that drug dealers are among Ennetcom's most devoted clients and have moved on to seize the company's servers.
Canadian police are rumored to be involved in the operation. Last week, evidence surfaced that Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was in possession of a BlackBerry decryption master key that could unlock encrypted messages sent to BlackBerry devices. Most of Ennetcom's handset offering includes BlackBerry smartphones.
