Detectives have the EncroChat phone of one of Merseyside's most high profile criminals - but it is likely to be useless to them.
Liam Cornett is serving a 26 year sentence after his international drugs network was unravelled in one of the biggest underworld investigations of recent years.
His influence stretched from northern Africa to the streets of Anfield as he oversaw a sprawling cocaine, heroin and amphetamine empire.
READ MORE: How the EncroChat hack unfolded after a breakthrough in northern France
The profits he reaped through the misery he peddled allowed him to operate from a base in the Costa del Sol and party in playboy paradise Monte Carlo, where footage obtained by police showed him riding in luxury cars and showering himself in banknotes.
When Cornett was jailed in December 2019 - alongside two dozen of those who helped him supply Class A drugs to Liverpool, Cardiff and Devon - those responsible for his downfall heralded the success of their operation.
The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit even highlighted how those who believed they were untouchable would, days later, be eating their Christmas dinners behind bars.
The comments came after an extensive operation that saw them work with multiple police forces and analyse more than five million lines of phone data, representing calls and texts made by the group.
Yet a level of secrecy was maintained within the gang's communications, hinted at by Detective Inspector Paul McVeigh in his comments after they were sentenced: “This group went to great lengths to try to avoid detection, including the use of sophisticated mobile phone technology specifically designed to hide their identities."
That "sophisticated" technology was mobile phones loaded with the shadowy communications platform EncroChat.
The operation that busted Cornett, who had a home in Huyton, recovered five BQ Aquaris handsets loaded with the software, which provided encrypted messaging and is said by the authorities to have been beloved by gangsters.
Last month, Liverpool Crown Court heard the haul included one that belonged to him.
That hearing centred on the profits of Cornett's criminality, valued at more than £1m by financial investigators.
They deemed just over £183,000 of that wealth remained obtainable and Cornett was ordered to hand over those assets within three months or face an extra two years in jail.
The judge was also made aware of Cornett's EncroChat phone - seized along with a £55,000 Rolex when he was arrested on his return to the UK at Manchester Airport.
With Cornett's power and influence having stretched across Europe, detectives would have loved to gain access to his EncroChat contact book and messages.
Used at the height of the network's popularity, at a time when the software was deemed impenetrable - details such as his username and the data linked to his associates could unlock numerous other crime networks.
But despite a breakthrough last year which saw investigators in France and the Netherlands hack into EncroChat and access the messages of tens of thousands of suspected gangsters, they are unlikely to have been able to have learned anything about Cornett.
This is because his device was seized on his arrest in October 2018 - 18 months before the hack.
The handset would have been inaccessible to detectives due to its layers of password protection. And last year's hack was only able to retrieve messages sent in the weeks before the operation went live, and some that were sent before those using EncroChat realised they were being watched.
With Cornett having been unable to access his device for more than a year before that investigation, it is likely his messages would have been deleted as most devices automatically cleared data after a set period, typically days and weeks.
As the service operated over subscription periods, it also probable his deal would have run out well before police could gain a glimpse into the secret communications of one of Merseyside's most notorious.
