We begin with the audio of a horrifying call made to the French police in 2020. Two men are driving home when their car is attacked. The police ask for the caller’s name as bullets ricochet around the vehicle. “Who cares what we’re called?” the man shouts. “I’m going to die!” Seconds later, his companion is dead. This killing (of a mechanic called Houcine Hakkar) was planned and discussed in detail on an app called Sky ECC. The police were at the tip of an enormous iceberg.
Showing modern law enforcement on screen can be a challenge: in the online era, it’s less cops and robbers; more zeros and ones. So it’s a surprise to be confronted with something as thrilling as The Narco Hack. This three-part documentary explores an extraordinary investigation by French, Belgian and Dutch police, during which they undermined several massive criminal organisations via methods at once impressively logical and completely mind-boggling by compromising Sky ECC’s encryption software.
