Encryption is really hard, and one mistake can unravel all of your efforts. I doubt that a boutique shop like Sky ECC's owners had the resources to secure it as well as they claimed.
"Sky ECC platform remains secure and our authorized devices have not been hacked.
There have been recent news articles that claim Sky ECC has been hacked and is involved in criminal activity. This information is not accurate. We have looked into these claims and discovered that a small group of individuals illegally created and distributed an unauthorized version of Sky ECC which they modified and side-loaded onto unsecure devices. Security features that come standard with the Sky ECC phones were eliminated in these bogus devices. ..." [0]
Pretty much every company responds to this kind of stuff with "nothing to see here, move along"
Sowing confusion with bold claims of compromise will lead criminals to not believe encrypted platforms are not secure and not use them, instead using easier to intercept methods of communication.
But those bold claims of compromise are backed up by a large, international, and simultaneously-executed roundup of the service's users, who from the likes of it all had Sky ECC in common. Also, the last time this happened was when Encrochat was compromised? That wasn't even all that long ago.
Also encryption is as good as its weakest link, in this case are humans. Probably police flipped some criminals to be informers and now it's running a smoke&mirrors campaign in media in order to send rest of criminals to make more mistakes.
As for the ideal way to do organized crime the main ingredient is to own judges + police and you're set for life. From time to time let some minor transport get intercepted by your corrupt policemen, have some small fish get fried by your judge and stir waters for a few days in media in their favor. Maybe this news is exactly that and while the newspapers are reporting few millions captured you haul the rest of billions without a hiccup.