Senior police figures said the body-blow caused to organised crime by the EncroChat hack may have caused "instability" in Merseyside's underworld in the wake of a year marred by horrifying gun violence.
The encrypted phone network was infiltrated by Dutch and French police in early 2020, and since then thousands of criminals across Europe have been arrested and prosecuted. The UK response to the hack, Operation Venetic, has seen more than 200 drug traffickers and violent enforcers arrested in Merseyside alone.
In early 2022, Merseyside Police told the ECHO it had "seen no evidence" of a "power-vacuum" caused by the unprecedented round up of high level drug traffickers and serious criminals. However, the force appears to have changed its stance in the wake of a series of horrific shootings, including the deaths of Sam Rimmer, Ashley Dale and Olivia Pratt-Korbel within a week in August, and then Jackie Rutter in October and Elle Edwards on Christmas Eve.
