These cryptomessenger-take downs happened in Europe and most EU jurisdictions work very differently from the US as far as admissibility and searches go. In fact in several of them (France, UK and Netherlands iirc) you even have to decrypt your own devices to provide evidence against yourself if there is a reasonable suspicion that evidence exists.
Actually there was a case some time ago very similar to your post office example: Someone was stealing letters/packages in a post sorting center near the Dutch-german border. Supervisors found a stash of partially opened/damaged/illegibly addressed letters and the suspected thief. Hand everything over to the police. Police opens all letters and reads them ostensibly to determine whether things are missing and where the letter is supposed to be delivered. One letter is from some german dude to some dutch dude asking for cannabis seeds. Oops. A few busted down doors later german dude is convicted, appeals on the grounds that it was obviously illegal for the police to just read his letter for no reason. Appeal denied - sure it was illegal for the police to do that, but he didn't get convicted based on the letter, but based on his plantation that was found during a raid.
So, as a general rule, it usually doesn't matter how or why police knew about something, if they have solid, physical evidence at the end of the day, it will not be thrown out just because some constitutional rights were ignored along the way.