Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the (a) short-term and (b) long-term effects of Operation Venetic on the (i) availability, (ii)) price and (iii) purity of drugs in the illegal market, by drug type and (iv) levels of violence associated with the illegal drug market.

The Government is committed to tackling global drugs supply and reducing the violence and harm associated with the illegal drugs market. Operation VENETIC targeted EncroChat, a global encrypted communications service that was used exclusively by serious and organised criminals to coordinate their illicit activities, including drugs trafficking.

There were 60,000 global users of EncroChat and 10,000 users in the UK, resulting in a significant volume of intelligence that UK law enforcement continue to act on. As a result, the impact on the (i) availability, (ii)) price and (iii) purity of drugs in the illegal market, by drug type and (iv) levels of violence associated with the illegal drug market has not been assessed.