Hacker gets seven years for breaching Rotterdam and Antwerp ports

The Amsterdam Court of Appeal sentenced a 44-year-old Dutch national to seven years in prison for multiple crimes, including computer hacking and attempted extortion.

The man was arrested in 2021 and convicted in 2022 by the Amsterdam District Court, but he appealed the sentence because authorities had unlawfully intercepted his communications, deriving incriminating evidence.

These communications occurred on the end-to-end encrypted chat service Sky ECC. Europol ‘cracked’ the service in 2021, which led to the arrest of the CEO and multiple users. The actions deriving from the operation extended into last year.

While the court relieved the defendant of one drug-related charge concerning the import of 5,000 kg of cocaine, it maintained the original conviction and the other charges.

Objections about law enforcement obtaining Sky-ECC messages were rejected, as the defense failed to substantiate claims of procedural violations in relation to the defendant’s fair-trial rights.

The individual is accused of compromising the servers in the ports of Rotterdam, Barendrecht, and Antwerp, in the Netherlands and Belgium, to import drugs undetected.

“He is guilty of complicity in computer hacking,” the court states, adding that “the purpose of this was to gain access to port systems so he could then import drugs undetected and undetected, thus facilitating drug trafficking.”

The man breached the IT systems of a port logistics firm via employees who inserted USB sticks containing malware. It is not specified if those employees were tricked or bribed to do this.

This enabled the hacker to plant a remote access tool on the internal systems, performing data exfiltration from databases and intercepting data during transmission.

The authorities also mention that, between September 15, 2020, and April 24, 2021, in association with others, the man attempted to resell malware and instructions on how to use it.

For computer hacking to facilitate drug trafficking, importation of 210kg of cocaine in the Netherlands, and attempted extortion, the man has received a final sentence of seven years of prison.