Encrypted messaging apps and social media exploited to recruit teenage hitmen

Teenagers are being recruited as hitmen via encrypted messaging apps and social media platforms. This is what law enforcement has feared all along.

Danish and Swedish authorities are striking back at violence-as-a-service by arresting individuals suspected of recruiting teenagers via social media platforms and encrypted messaging apps to carry out contract killings.

A total of seven 14 to 26-year-olds have been arrested from countries like Sweden and Morocco.

This is a part of a growing trend spreading across Europe where young people are targeted online to engage in violent crimes.

Europol previously warned the public of “extremely violent” online cults that exploit and manipulate children, luring them into abuse, criminal acts, and even self-harm.

The phenomenon of violent online exploitation pressuring young people to join cult communities has grown “significantly” in recent years, the EU’s police agency reports in a new intelligence notice.

These online cults target children as young as eight to commit acts of terror, chaos, and violence, according to authorities. The collapse of modern society is a common theme, as are ideologies promoting mass shootings, bombings, and other acts of crime.

This trend only seems to continue in Europe as criminal networks are exploiting messaging platforms and social media to lure children into acts of violence.

These networks “exploit social media to post contract offers for shootings, which is known typically as “violence-as-a-service,” a topic that Cybernews has previously reported on.

Encrypted messaging apps: law enforcement's worst nightmare

The concept of “going dark” has presented challenges for law enforcement, as various encrypted messaging apps such as Signal or now even WhatsApp make it easy for criminals to carry out illegal activities.

It is also next to impossible to access end-to-end encrypted messages (E2EE) even with a warrant or court order.

This is because this cryptographic technique can only be decrypted when it’s received by the person it’s intended for.

No intermediary party, like a service provider, can access your data in plaintext.

This means that law enforcement can’t access messages that are E2EE, as not even the service provider can see them.