Sky ECC at the heart of the trial: ten years in prison requested against Karim Harrat

Karim Harrat, 37 years old, is on trial for having led a large-scale drug trafficking operation between Dubai, Morocco and Marseille. Arrested in 2021 at Casablanca airport after several years on the run, he was extradited to France in 2023. The public prosecutor’s representative described him as a "professional delinquent" at the head of a perfectly hierarchical structure, demanding a 500,000 euro fine and a two-thirds security measure against him.

The prosecution is based on the hacking, in 2021, of the encrypted Sky ECC messaging service, a veritable "Rosetta stone" for investigators. These exchanges, which the traffickers thought were inviolable, revealed the daily management of the network: passing orders, logistics of cocaine transport and threats of elimination. For the prosecutor, the analysis of this data unambiguously confirms that Harrat used the pseudonym "Rant" to pilot his criminal activities from abroad.

The indictment castigated the "megalomania" of the defendant, citing messages where he claimed total control over the city of Marseille. Karim Harrat vehemently denies being the user behind the pseudonym "Rant", a crucial issue for him as he is also implicated in four homicide cases. The defendant presents himself at the bar as a simple common law offender, far from the portrait of the "demiurge" of drug trafficking painted by the authorities.

The defense pleaded for acquittal, denouncing a case built on "urban legends" and compilations of procedures not yet judged. His lawyers castigate a judicial truth that would be based on the word of former traffickers rather than on tangible evidence. The Marseille Criminal Court is due to deliver its judgment this Thursday, January 29 at 11:30 am.