Dutch police have discovered a make-shift torture chamber, nicknamed the ‘treatment room’ by criminals, while investigating the drug trade in the Netherlands.
The sound-proofed shipping container, which holds a dentist chair equipped with restraints, was discovered in a warehouse in Wouwse Plantage, a village south of Rotterdam in southwestern Netherlands, close to the border with Belgium.
Authorities raided the warehouse last month after the underground phone system EncroChat was cracked, leading to the arrest of 746 underworld kingpins in Britain alone.
The torture chamber had not yet been used, said police, who alerted potential victims to go into hiding after messages revealed the existence of such a room.
Inside the container, which was lined with foil in an effort to deter the victims being spotted on thermal imaging cameras, they found tools including pliers, scalpels and handcuffs ready for use.
Threatening messages found on the infiltrated communications network, run by a mysterious Dutch firm, found that gang members had refereed to the container as the ‘treatment room’.
The ‘dentist chair’, where prisoners would have been strapped in and tortured
The chair had belts attached to the arm and foot supports. Police saw photos of the ‘treatment room’ on encrypted chats before the raid
Hammers, wire cutters, pliers and even a hedge trimmer were set up for use on victims
What is the ‘EncroChat’ smartphone system?
EncroChat was a secret platform where users were able to communicate privately between specially-designed handsets – often to run drugs, traffick people and even order murders.
These devices, costing £1,500, are usually Android-based smartphones that had their GPS sensors, microphones, and cameras stripped out, encrypted chat apps installed by default to allow people to sent private messages. It is now emerging that criminal syndicates across the world had one – with one in six of the 60,000 users in the UK.
Marketed as the electronic equivalent of two people having a conversation in an empty room, it enabled users to send written messages or make voice calls through an encrypted system.
There were thought to be 60,000 users internationally, including 10,000 in the UK, with prices at £1,500 for a six-month contract.
Investigators say that the platform, which was not in itself illegal, was designed to be secure against unwanted outside access, and in the UK was used purely for criminal purposes. Since the breach, the Encrochat platform has shut down.
According to the Encrochat website, customers had access to features such as self-destructing messages, that deleted from the recipient’s device after a certain length of time. There was also panic wipe, where all the data on the device could be deleted by entering a four-digit code from the lock-screen.
The National Crime Agency said the handset could also be wiped remotely.
In the messages one criminal referred to a ‘dog’ that had gone missing, with another then saying: ‘When I get him on the chair there will be more’, reports The Sun.
Police were able to conduct the raid after the French police cracked their communications network and encrypted criminals’ phones to read millions of messages.
The messages from an EncroChat phone tipped police off about warehouse, called the ‘treatment room’ and the ‘ebi,’ a reference to a top security Dutch prison.
They arrested six men on June 22 on suspicion of crimes including preparing kidnappings and serious assault.
The messages also included photos of the container and dentist’s chair with belts attached to the arm and foot supports.
Video released by the police showed a heavily armed arrest team blasting open a door at the warehouse and discovering the improvised prison.
‘Six of the containers were intended as cells in which people could be tied up and one container was intended as a torture chamber,’ Andy Kraag, head of the police’s National Investigation Service, said in a video released by police.
A search of the containers uncovered bags containing tools including hedge cutters, scalpels and pliers.
The tools ‘were likely intended to torture victims or at least put them under pressure,’ the police statement said.
The whole investigation has lead to more than 100 suspects, seized more than 8,000 kilograms of cocaine, seized over 1,200 kilograms of crystal meth, dismantled 19 synthetic drug labs and seized dozens of firearms.
Andy Kraag said that the police operation ‘prevented a number of violent crimes.’
On June 22, Dutch national police force officers arrested six men on suspicion of crimes including preparing kidnappings and serious assault.
Another armed team detained a suspect in Rotterdam.
In searches of other properties, including what police described as a base for the criminals near the port city of Rotterdam, officers found police uniforms and body armor, stolen vehicles, 25 firearms and drugs.
A court in Amsterdam ordered the six suspects held for 90 days as investigations continue.
‘This is a great result of the 26Lemont investigation,’ Kraag said. ‘And, take it from me, many more results will follow.’
Dutch police use explosives to enter a building where a torture chamber is hidden in a shipping container in Wouwse Plantage, Netherlands
A heavily armes arrest team blasted open a door at the warehouse and arrested over 100 suspects
When they searched the containers they found tools including ncluding hedge cutters, scalpels and pliers