By Sudip Kar-Gupta
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A court in Belgium sentenced more than 100 people in a mass drugs trafficking trial on Tuesday which authorities hailed as a major victory in the battle against drug gangs.
Belgium has been on the front line in Europe's war against drugs. Officials have said more than 100 of Europe's most dangerous criminal networks operate in Belgium, with drug gangs blamed for a rise in street shootings in Brussels.
The convictions resulted from the earlier takedown by law enforcement authorities of the Sky ECC encrypted messaging service that had been widely used by drugs traffickers.
"More than 100 people were convicted today during a massive drug trafficking trial in Brussels," said the Belgian federal police.
In all, 119 people were sentenced to prison terms ranging between 14 months and 17 years.
The biggest sentence was handed out to an Algerian identified by the authorities as Abdelwahab Guerni, who got a 17 years prison sentence. An Albanian called Eridan Munoz-Guerrero was convicted to 14 years in prison.
"This marks a real turning point in the battle against organised crime and against criminality related to drugs," said Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden, commenting on the verdicts.
The Sky ECC encrypted messaging service was cracked by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Australian and European law enforcement agencies in 2021.
Europol said at the time that the operation "provided invaluable insights into hundreds of millions of messages exchanged between criminals".