One of the Vancouver men charged more than three years ago in the United States for involvement with an encrypted smartphone company lost his appeal of a French judge’s decision to deny him bail.
A grand jury in San Diego indicted Sky Global CEO Jean-Francois Eap and distributor Thomas Herdman in March 2021 on charges of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. U.S. prosecutors accused the men of selling modified smartphones and subscriptions for Sky Global’s encrypted Sky ECC network to transnational drug traffickers. They claimed that Sky Global netted hundreds of millions of dollars in profits by helping criminals hide their transactions from law enforcement.
None of the allegations against Eap and Herdman has been tested in court.
After the indictment in March 2021, Eap vowed to clear his name and issued a statement that said: “We do not condone illegal or unethical behaviour by our partners or customers. To brand anyone who values privacy and freedom of speech as a criminal is an outrage.”
Herdman is also hoping to clear his name. But the 63-year-old remains in custody after 38 months at the Fleury-Mérogis prison south of Paris. A judge rejected the Aug. 7 appeal of his failed July bail request.
“We consider that our client is from now on a political prisoner,” said Herdman’s lawyer Paul Sin-Chan. "The debate on the evidence of guilt will highlight that this case is a fiasco and no magistrate has the courage to say so.”
“It’s been three years, 38 months, now that he's in pretrial detention, all requests for release have been rejected,” Sin-Chan said in an interview.
The most-recent proposal included house arrest while under electronic monitoring and 250,000 euros (or $378,000 Canadian) bail. A judge deemed Herdman a flight risk and rejected the application.
No trial date in France has been scheduled, Sin-Chan said.
“We are absolutely ready to discuss, point-by-point, any element of this case, that there is no proof of the link between Mr. Herdman and any drugs, any drug importation, any criminal act,” Sin-Chan said.
Sin-Chan said his client has also been falsely portrayed as a senior executive of Sky Global. Moreover, he said Herdman should not be in French custody. Herdman was arrested in Spain in June 2021 on a warrant from France after he came to Spain to co-operate with U.S. prosecutors under what is known as a proffer agreement.
Sin-Chan said French authorities were denied three times under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Canada, when they applied to seize bank accounts, search Sky Global offices and compel witnesses to testify.
“There were no sufficient elements to prove an offence had been committed, as simple as that,” he said.
Sky Global had been so confident of its product, that it offered $5 million to anyone who could crack it. In mid-2019, a French court permitted wiretapping Sky ECC’s Roubaix, France servers. Police from Belgium, France and Netherlands formed a joint investigation team by the end of the year. Under Operation Argus, they intercepted a billion messages and shut down Sky Global on March 9, 2021. Two law professors in a New Journal of European Law article last November said that police in Belgium and France found criminals using Sky ECC phones as early as 2015 and the investigation reaped a “treasure trove or jackpot for law enforcement authorities.”
The case against Eap and Herdman in the U.S. appears dormant. But, as of March, Belgian authorities said judges there handed down 87 sentences totalling a combined 1,100 years in prison. They also seized the equivalent of $270 million.
At the end of January, a U.S. grand jury indicted Damion Patrick John Ryan, a full-patch Hells Angel from B.C., for allegedly using Sky ECC to plot murders with a drug lord connected to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Prosecutors allege Ryan and his co-accused shared photographs of the intended victims, maps identifying their locations, discussed logistics, recruited personnel and negotiated payment via Sky ECC.
Eap and interior designer wife Jennifer Zhang are behind the Hello Nori sushi restaurants. The first opened in early 2021 on Robson Street. Another opened last February in the Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby and the Hello Nori website says another is coming soon at Richmond Centre. Work continues on the Park Royal location in West Vancouver, three years after the construction hoarding went up below The Keg restaurant.
Court filings offered a glimpse into the ripple effects of the indictment against Eap. National Bank of Canada froze his accounts and filed for foreclosure. Eap countersued. The dispute appeared to be settled out of court in January 2023 with the filing of separate notices of dismissal.
