The town features heavily in Operation Dark Phone: Murder by Text – a four-episode Channel 4 docu-drama that centres on the EncroChat messaging network.

Criminals using encrypted phones believed that they could speak under the radar about heinous crimes including shootings and huge drug conspiracies.

However, European law enforcement agencies hacked the network and were able to read millions of messages over 74 days, preventing thousands of crimes from being committed, and leading to hundreds of arrests and convictions.

The series features in depth serious criminal incidents in Warrington which were covered extensively by the Warrington Guardian at the time and during the court process.

“Five years in the making, this is true crime like you’ve never seen it before. From the makers of 24 Hours in Police Custody and Attack on London, Operation Dark Phone: Murder by Text is the inside story of one of the biggest law enforcement operations to bring down organised… pic.twitter.com/eCyCvvfmgs

— TheGardenProductions (@TheGardenTV) July 26, 2025

Such incidents include a doorstep shooting by a fake pizza delivery man, an international hunt for the mastermind behind the plot, and a grenade being placed in an Orford garden.

The series also features the actions of a corrupt Warrington police staff member which almost led to criminals realising that the network had been infiltrated.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: “Operation Dark Phone is the inside story into the largest joint law enforcement operation commenced against a global network of organised crime groups.

“For the first time since the EncroChat network was infiltrated in 2020, the scale of the messages sent and the criminals exposed are exclusively revealed in a four-part documentary series that tells the story in compelling and shocking detail.

“For 74 frantic days, the authorities could read all the messages and sought to save lives and bring down the gangs, before the criminals realised their data was being captured.”

In the first episode, it is revealed that by 2020, EncroChat had become the phone of choice for thousands of the most serious criminals.

Matt Horne, of the National Crime Agency, said: “EncroChat was being used by organised crime gangs, but in a way that we could not see, orchestrating and organising importations of drugs and firearms, money laundering, conspiring to cause serious violence, or even to kill.”

National Crime Agency analysts had discovered that the device was alarmingly widespread, with 10,000 UK users, but with a truly global reach.

After French authorities cracked the network, data was shared with the NCA, with the series featuring heavily on messages sent from an Encro device with the handle ‘Live-long’.

Viewers learn this was operated by Jamie Rothwell – a Salford gangster involved in a feud with notorious Warrington gun and drug gang leader Leon Cullen.

Cullen, who was jailed for 22-and-a-half years in May 2021, was in prison in Dubai during the period focused on in the series, following almost two years on the run as Warrington’s most wanted man.

Dramatised scenes show an actor portraying Rothwell viewing Warrington Guardian articles on Cullen, organising retribution through messages on EncroChat.

This led to a grenade being placed outside a home on Birtles Road in Orford on April 15, 2020, with a controlled explosion being carried out by bomb disposal experts.

Those involved, who were also behind acid attack and shooting conspiracies, were jailed for more than 50 years combined in June 2022.

Another shocking incident involved an innocent man being shot on his own doorstep on Poplars Avenue, Orford, on April 24, 2020, by a fake pizza delivery man.

Five people have already been jailed for more than 70 years in connection with the incident.

Rothwell was arrested by European law enforcement and is due to be sentenced later this month.

Operation Dark Phone also tells the story of Natalie Mottram – a corrupt police staff worker from Warrington who tipped off criminals that police had hacked the system.

Matt, gold command at the NCA, continued: “By using EncroChat, criminals were part of a global network, and it was borderless in nature.

“Cracking into the EncroChat had to be an international effort. The success or failure of this operation was based on all the countries keeping it a secret.

“If any one country revealed what was going on, then potentially it could bring it down for everybody.”

He admitted that his worst fears came to pass, and the finger of blame was pointed at the British.

“It is shaping up to be a fantastic operation, and that is when I am told by the team, we can see messages that we are really worried about,” he said.

“There is a leak, there are some criminals who know that something is going on, and when I learn that, obviously I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.”

This turns out to be Mottram, who was jailed for three years and nine months in November 2023 on charges including misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice.

Thanks to the intelligence gathered through Operation Venetic – the British investigation into EncroChat messages – cases are still being brought to court five years on.

Last month saw members of a Warrington organised crime gang jailed for more than 55 years over an ‘industrial’, multi-kilo drug supply conspiracy.

The gang used encrypted phones to discuss their criminality, including ‘blasting’ rival gang members in the leg and ‘wiping them out’ over an Instagram account set up to ‘taunt them’.

More sentencings are scheduled for defendants from Warrington who used the EncroChat network to conduct their criminal activities are scheduled for the coming weeks and months.

All four episodes of Operation Dark Phone: Murder by Text are available to watch now on demand on Channel 4 or via channel4.com/programmes/operation-dark-phone-murder-by-text

Warrington Guardian | What’s On