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Sky ECC interception and action day

February 2021, Criminal communications
Led by Belgian Federal Police, Politie (Netherlands National Police)

Verified core entry, last reviewed August 21, 2026

What was taken down?

Encrypted traffic decrypted and monitored; infrastructure disrupted; large-scale searches and seizures on the action day.[1][2]

See what happened

What happened to the people?

Officials reported 48 apprehended.
Group accounted for: Not applicable

See people and accountability

Did it stay down?

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

See what happened afterward

Belgian, Dutch, and French authorities monitored Sky ECC communications and executed a coordinated action day, unlocking roughly a billion messages from approximately 70,000 users.[1][2]

Announced March 10, 2021.

Date
February 1 to March 9, 2021
Target
Sky ECC, encrypted communications network
Activity
Criminal communications, Trafficking and exploitation
Operational lead
Belgian Federal Police and Dutch National Police
Partners
Europol, Belgian Federal Prosecutor[1][2]
Jurisdiction
Belgium, Netherlands, France, United States, and European Union
Outcome
Encrypted traffic decrypted and monitored; infrastructure disrupted; large-scale searches and seizures on the action day.
Status
Completed
Legal mechanism
Belgian and Dutch judicial authorization; French cooperation; Europol and Eurojust coordination
Group accounted for
Not applicable

Infrastructure

70,000 user accounts searched. Command and control servers taken over, with no count in the record.

approximately 70,000
user accounts searched
Identifier Recorded as Status Notes
Not published Command and control server Taken over Encrypted traffic decrypted and monitored by Belgian and Dutch authorities.[2]
Not published approximately 70,000 user accounts Searched Approximately 70,000 users, with roughly one billion messages unlocked.[2]

Domains and onion addresses are shown defanged. Where the record gives a count but no identifier, the count is shown in place of one. This list carries only what appears in the cited sources.

No individual is named against this entry in the cited record. That is a gap in what has been published rather than a finding that nobody was involved.

Group accounted for: Not applicable

The target was a communications platform used by many unrelated criminal groups rather than a finite operator group.

Not applicable for the same reasons as EncroChat.

See the organizations and roles behind this action

Extensive Belgian and Dutch prosecutions. Sky Global publicly disputed the characterization of the company.[1][2]

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

Return class F. The class is a research grading carried in the source dataset and its scale is not published, so this page relies on the relationship and confidence values instead. How this index handles it.

Numbered markers throughout this entry link to the source that supports the claim beside them.

Official sources

  1. [1]
    Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office statement on the Sky ECC action day

    Federal Public Prosecutor's Office of Belgium, March 9, 2021, Source grade P1

    Belgian searches, arrests, and judicial authorization

    No address recorded for this source. Publisher, title, and date are given so it can be retrieved from the publisher.

  2. [2]
    New major interventions to block encrypted communications of criminal networks

    Europol, March 10, 2021, Source grade P2

    Sky ECC monitoring, user and message scale, Belgian action day

    No address recorded for this source. Publisher, title, and date are given so it can be retrieved from the publisher.

Coverage note.
  • Reported 48 arrests on the Belgian action day and approximately 200 premises searched.
  • A separate US indictment against Sky Global's chief executive is a distinct legal action and is not merged into this infrastructure record.
  • Admissibility of Sky ECC evidence has been litigated with mixed outcomes.