Many of the targets are said to have considered themselves 'untouchable', posing as respectable, wealthy tycoons.
Users pay £1,600 a month for a bespoke Encrochat handset which offers a highly encrypted communication platform used legitimately by celebrities and investigative journalists who fear being hacked.But organised crime gangs used it to underpin their operations, swapping images of guns and drugs for sale and building in codes and timers that wiped data automatically.
In one dawn raid, officers used specialist counter-terror firearms officers and stun grenades to arrest a dangerous suspect involved in firearms and major drug trafficking.Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said:"This is an amazing moment.
"So this is just the beginning. We have arrested large numbers of people. We have many more to arrest and we will be disrupting organised criminal networks as a result of these operations for weeks and months and possibly years to come.
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