MPC (mobile phone company)
MPC was a company that provided encrypted phones to criminals.[1]
Background[edit]
James and Barries Gillespie were brothers involved in crime in Glasgow.[1] They moved to Portugal to avoid being killed in a gang war while running their business.[1] Scottish police have named their gang the Escalade Group.[1]
Encrypted phones[edit]
Initially the brothers used phones from Ennetcom.[1] They then hired developers to develop an operating system for their own phones and distributed them to their own gang and others they worked for.[1] They began selling the phones to other gangs.[1]
They sponsored blogger Martin Kok and ran advertisements.[1][2]
They also used intimidation tactics against mobile phone resellers.[1]
The phones they adapted were Nexus 5 or Nexus 5X models.[1]
Murder of Martin Kok[edit]
On 8 December 2017 Martin Kok was shot dead outside a sex club in Laren.[3] Christopher Hughes faced charges of concealing money and supplying encrypted devices to others (including Kok), a second charge relating to the supply of cocaine and a final charge in relation to the murder of Kok.[4] In April 2022 Hughes was convicted at the High Court in Stirling, Scotland and jailed for at least 25 years.[5]
Ridouan Taghi is also linked to the murder.[2]
The motive for the murder was blog posts that annoyed Moroccan crime figures with links to the Gillespie brothers. The brothers lulled Kok into a false sense of security by sponsoring him and running adverts on his site. They then arranged for him to be murdered by their associates.[2]
Status[edit]
As of October 2019 the company is closed.[1]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cox, Joseph (2019-10-22). "Inside the Phone Company Secretly Run By Drug Traffickers". Motherboard. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
- ^ a b c Cox, Joseph (2018-10-24). "Encrypted Phone Company Helped Plan Crime Blogger's Murder, Cops and Source Say". Motherboard. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
- ^ Barnes, David (2018-02-08). "The Strange Life of a Murderer Turned Crime Blogger". Wired. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
- ^ "Man denies role in sex club murder of Dutch crime writer". BBC News. 7 April 2021. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
- ^ "Scottish gangster lured crime writer to 'execution' outside sex club". STV News. 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2022-05-31.