MALDON residents heard earlier this week how the town centre policing team is tackling drug dealing head on – now details of a separate Essex Police operation to tackle the supply of drugs from London into the county has emerged.

A man has been arrested and a large amount of cash seized as part of an investigation linked to Operation Venetic and the cracking of specially encrypted phones.

Officers investigating the sale of drugs in Essex swooped on an address in Wanstead Park, east London, on Friday (21 August).

A 52-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to sell Class A drugs and conspiring to conceal, disguise, convert, transfer or remove criminal property. He has been released on bail until 17 September.

The cash (pictured) was seized along with an encrypted phone and a cash counter.

Operation Venetic involves the cracking of an encrypted global communication service, EncroChat, used exclusively by criminals. The secure mobile phone instant messaging service has 60,000 users worldwide and around 10,000 in the UK.

Since 2016, international law enforcement agencies worked together to target EncroChat and earlier this year, agencies in France and the Netherlands infiltrated the platform. The intelligence gleaned through this was then shared via Europol to national law enforcement agencies.