A 38-year-old Canadian was arrested on July 9 in Zug, Switzerland, after France made the extradition request, according to a recent Swiss court decision.DADO RUVIC/Reuters
French authorities are seeking to extradite another Canadian to face criminal charges in connection with encrypted phone service EncroChat, which was used by organized crime groups in Europe to avoid police surveillance, after having already apprehended the company’s alleged mastermind.
A 38-year-old Canadian was arrested on July 9 in Zug, Switzerland, after France made the extradition request, according to a recent Swiss court decision. France has accused the man, who is identified only as “A” in the court file, of having operated the EncroChat system while knowing that the phones were mainly used to co-ordinate illegal activities. French authorities have alleged that EncroChat was used to facilitate drug trafficking, arms trading and money laundering, among other crimes.
The Canadian has lived in Zug since 2019, according to the court record, along with his Swiss wife and their child. While the Aug. 14 ruling does not name the accused, the details of the case bear resemblance to a Canadian named Seiji Godo, who lives in Zug and operates a company there, according to corporate records. French authorities have alleged that Mr. Godo was EncroChat’s technical director.
The extradition, should it go forward, would follow that of Canadian Paul Krusky, who is currently in custody in France. A low-profile tech entrepreneur who grew up in Guelph, Ont., Mr. Krusky had been living in the Dominican Republic before his extradition earlier this year. French prosecutors accuse him of facilitating organized crime through EncroChat, among other offences, and describe him as the company’s general manager and key decision maker.
His lawyer, Antoine Vey, has said Mr. Krusky denies allegations, which have not been proven in court.
France’s extradition request to Switzerland is the latest in a series of similar actions by French authorities, who are taking an aggressive approach to curb the spread of harmful and illegal content online, including via encryption platforms, and to hold individual tech executives responsible.
Last month, French police arrested Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire who founded messaging app Telegram, to face charges that he was complicit in illegal activity occurring on his platform.
France also indicted 30 other people in August for their involvement with another encrypted messaging service called Sky ECC, which was founded by Vancouver-based Sky Global and became popular with drug dealers, according to Agence France-Presse.
In the new Swiss case, the accused Canadian man sought to be released from custody under an alternative arrangement, such as house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Mark Livschitz, a white-collar-crime lawyer in Zurich, Switzerland, who is representing the unnamed Canadian, argued his client is not a flight risk.
The court, however, disagreed. “There is a high risk of him fleeing,” the decision states, adding he is relatively young, has family in Canada and faces a long prison sentence in France if convicted. The Swiss court dismissed the appeal entirely in its decision, which is in German.
Mr. Livschitz did not reply to questions from The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Godo, the Canadian living in Switzerland, was named in a previous court document as one of the leaders of EncroChat, according to French authorities, who have also said the company was in direct contact with a major Spanish drug trafficker and Dutch biker gangs.
Thierry Marembert, a Paris-based attorney for Mr. Godo, previously told The Globe that “Mr. Godo vehemently denies the allegations and looks forward to being vindicated in due time.” Mr. Marembert said on Friday that he has nothing to add to his previous statement.
European authorities have said EncroChat phones were used nearly exclusively by organized crime groups to evade detection. The company provided ultrasecure Android phones that were distributed through a network of resellers across Canada and Europe for roughly €1,000 (about $1,510). A six-month subscription plan cost another €1,500 ($2,265).
The phones were made to look like regular devices that run Google’s Android operating system. Users could enter a password that would allow them to switch over to the EncroChat operating system. Messages between EncroChat users were encrypted end-to-end and could be set to self-destruct after a period. The phones were stripped of their GPS functionality and had a “panic wipe” feature that allowed users to erase a phone’s contents by punching in a code.
The French Gendarmerie Nationale began investigating EncroChat in 2017. By 2020, French authorities had infiltrated the company’s servers, which were housed in Roubaix, a city in northern France. The investigation has so far led to more than 6,500 arrests of EncroChat users and the seizure of large quantities of drugs and cash. Before it shut down, EncroChat had roughly 60,000 users.
Mr. Godo has a long history as a technology entrepreneur who focuses on privacy and encryption. Corporate records list him as a director of Binary IO Solutions Inc., a tech consulting company in Vancouver that was incorporated in 2011. “We highly value discretion and client confidentiality by providing secure communications whenever desirable and not advertising our client list,” reads an archived version of its website.
The other director of Binary IO Solutions is listed as Benjamin Haigh, who told The Globe in July that he “was contracted for web development work” on a component of the EncroChat system for a limited period. Mr. Haigh did not respond to an e-mail seeking further comment.
Mr. Godo also worked for a company called Esoteric Communications in Vancouver that appears to have links to EncroChat, according to previous Globe reporting.
Douglas Pare, who owned one-third of the company, told The Globe he hired Mr. Godo out of Simon Fraser University to write code for an encrypted phone product called EsoCrypt. But Mr. Pare left the company in 2011 over discomfort with his business partners, Craig Widdifield and Jeff Chang. Both had ties to organized crime, according to police, and are now dead.
Mr. Godo “continued on at Esoteric after my departure,” Mr. Pare said. It’s not clear whether the company ever finished its encrypted phone product.
More recently, Mr. Godo served as a director and chief executive of SDM Technologies in Zug. The company sells mobile phones with a custom operating system that allows users to toggle between the regular Google Android interface and an ultrasecure environment, complete with encrypted messaging and notes apps.
According to its website, the company hopes to sell the devices to governments, militaries and “NATO-friendly” partners.