The Antwerp Criminal Court on Friday handed down sentences of up to five years in prison to several people involved in the hacking of a computer system of the port administration company Antwerp Euroterminal (AET). Among them, Mohammed C., a drug baron, sentenced to five years in prison, and Vicky VD, a former employee of the AET, sentenced to three years.
In May 2021, the police had discovered the hack of the system thanks to information from messages exchanged via the Sky ECC application. Vicky VD, who worked in this company, provided Karim V., implicated in the case, with information concerning the anti-virus program and the operating system used at AET. The man then handed her a USB drive, which she plugged into her computer at work. This contained a hacking tool.
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Access to sensitive information
The cybercriminals managed to hack a local server of the company, but not the main server. The two accomplices notably had access to personnel data, plans of the AET and the location of the security cameras as well as their live images. Vicky VD also reportedly sought information regarding a container entered through the terminal which investigators believe contained cocaine. The intercepted messages also launched the investigators on the trail of Mohammed C., nicknamed “the Algerian”, and Zakaria D., designated as the sponsors of this hack.
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Believing that their role was crucial in this case, the court sentenced them to the heaviest sentence, five years in prison. Vicky VD receives a three-year prison sentence. During the trial, she also apologized to the AET, her ex-employer.
The decryption of Sky ECC
The investigation that led to the arrest and then the judgment of the protagonists in this case was carried out thanks to information on the criminal cryptophone network Sky ECC.
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Two years ago, on March 9, 2021, the Federal Judicial Police and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office carried out the largest legal and police action in the history of Belgium, by decoding one billion encrypted messages from Sky ECC.
Since then, 526 cases have been initiated, and nearly 3,000 suspects in organized crime cases have been identified. This was detailed on Thursday by the Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD), and the Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden (CD&V).
Sentences have already been handed down in 344 individual cases, representing 1,125 years of imprisonment. Nearly 110 million euros of criminal money was also seized.