EncroChat logo, on June 27, 2023.DADO RUVIC/Reuters
The lawyer for a Canadian man jailed in France on drug and money-laundering charges for allegedly operating an encrypted phone service for organized crime groups said his client is the victim of a “fake story” by French authorities.
Police in France have accused Paul Krusky, a 55-year-old from Guelph, Ont., of being the mastermind behind EncroChat, an encrypted communications platform that was allegedly used by organized crime members to co-ordinate drug shipments, launder money, trade arms and plot murders, all while evading detection by law enforcement. The service had more than 60,000 users around the world before it was infiltrated by police in 2020.
Mr. Krusky, who had been living in the Dominican Republic with his wife, has spent much of the past year in a French jail after he was extradited in February.
“We are coming to a point where the story that was constructed by the police to get him in jail is cracking,” said Antoine Vey, a lawyer in Paris who represents Mr. Krusky. “He’s not a criminal. He has no connection with criminals.”
In his first interview about the case, Mr. Vey described his client as a “libertarian Canadian geek who had this idea of creating software that could not be spied on.” He portrayed Mr. Krusky as technologically savvy but inexperienced at running a business. His original intent, according to Mr. Vey, was to sell the service to intelligence agencies. But Mr. Krusky failed to structure the company properly and to secure the right investors.
“He got onto the wrong side of the road,” Mr. Vey said. “When he realized that this system was much darker than he thought, it was too late for him.” Mr. Krusky wanted to extricate himself from EncroChat but was facing threats and feared for his safety, according to Mr. Vey.
French prosecutors allege something else entirely. They have accused Mr. Krusky and his associates of deliberately selling encrypted EncroChat phones to known criminals and laundering the profits through a complex web of companies and banks. The people running EncroChat were in direct contact with a major Spanish drug trafficker and Dutch biker gangs, French authorities claimed in a December, 2023, judicial record from the Dominican Republic.
Mr. Krusky allegedly went by the username “dystopian” on the platform, according to the court document, which describes him as EncroChat’s general director and key decision maker who personally oversaw the addition and removal of users on the network.
None of the allegations have been proven in court. The prosecutor’s office in Lille, where the case is being heard, did not respond to a request for comment.
EncroChat was an operating system loaded onto Android smartphones that were modified for extra security, such as having the GPS functionality disabled. The devices were sold through a network of resellers across Europe and other countries, typically for €1,000, with a six-month subscription plan fetching another €1,500.
Users could switch to the EncroChat operating system by entering a password, and access encrypted messaging services and other apps. The phones came with a “panic wipe” feature that allowed users to erase the contents by punching in a code, while a reseller could do the same remotely.
The French Gendarmerie nationale began investigating EncroChat in 2017, and by 2020, it was able to access the company’s servers, which were housed at a data centre in the northern city of Roubaix. The information retrieved through that investigation has so far resulted in more than 6,500 arrests and the seizure of huge quantities of drugs and more than €700-million in cash.
Mr. Vey disputed the allegations made during Mr. Krusky’s extradition case in the Dominican Republic that he was in direct contact with organized crime groups. “They have not been able to demonstrate that,” he said of French authorities.
Mr. Krusky was no longer the owner of EncroChat, according to Mr. Vey. “He had created the software, the design. He resold the product to someone else,” Mr. Vey said. “Krusky was not in touch with the reseller network.”
Mr. Vey said he could not disclose the names of the two or three individuals involved with EncroChat, and suggested that Mr. Krusky may have been compelled at some point to remain a part of the operation. “He’s a guy who’s been threatened physically,” he said. “It’s either you shut up and you do what they ask you to do, or if you want to get out, it’s complex.”
Charging the person who created EncroChat makes little sense, he continued. “Why do you prosecute the guy that creates the device when you don’t prosecute the guy that creates guns?” he said. “A gun is designed to kill. A device is designed to communicate.”
France is trying to extradite another Canadian to face charges related to EncroChat. In July, Swiss police arrested a 38-year-old Canadian, whose name is not disclosed in court documents, in Zug at the request of French authorities.
The Globe and Mail previously reported that the individual described in the court documents bears a resemblance to Seiji Godo, who French authorities allege served as EncroChat’s technical director.
According to Mr. Vey, his client is currently in poor shape while in custody, both physically and mentally. “It’s very hard on him because he doesn’t speak French,” said Mr. Vey, who has been visiting Mr. Krusky in jail over the past year. He is hoping to convince the court to release Mr. Krusky on bail or house arrest, arguing that he is not a flight risk.
Mr. Vey is well-known in France as one of the lawyers who represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in his lengthy extradition battle against the U.S. to face espionage charges. In a deal with prosecutors in June, Mr. Assange pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of obtaining and publishing military secrets, but was allowed to return home to Australia without serving time in U.S. prison.
There are similarities between the two clients, Mr. Vey said. “What I see is a super clever guy,” he said of Mr. Krusky. “It’s the same with Assange. Anyone who creates something of that scale is, in a way, different. So he’s a man that really takes as fact that we should be free to communicate.”