RCMP intercept BBM messages in crime crackdown
Police in Quebec, Canada intercepted more than a million BlackBerry PIN-to-PIN communications as part of a crackdown against organized crime that culminated with 29 arrests Thursday.
The RCMP said it was the first time that such a technique had been used on such a large scale in an investigation.
Thanks to their wiretaps of BlackBerry PIN messages,
“investigators were able to identify the suspects in relation to a series of violent crimes committed on the Montréal territory between 2010 and 2012: arson, weapon cache, forcible confinement, drug trafficking, gangsterism and conspiracy,†the RCMP said in a communiqué.
The 29 suspects face 87 criminal counts, on charges such as drug trafficking, assault, extortion, kidnapping and arson.
Reports that the police had managed to intercept PIN-to-PIN messages first surfaced two years ago, in court proceedings in the murder case against convicted mobster Raynald Desjardins.
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