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For almost three years, criminals used a network of encrypted devices to share the dirty details
of their smuggling and money laundering operations. If their messages
about stuffing cocaine into pineapples and cans of tuna ever fell into
authorities' hands, they believed, the incriminating information could
be wiped from the encrypted devices they were using.
Well, they were duped.
The FBI was
in cahoots with the developer of the device, called "Anom," the whole
time, and yesterday announced a series of successful busts and 800+
arrests under the code name Operation Trojan Shield. They also seized...
- Eight tons of cocaine and 22 tons of cannabis
- 55 luxury vehicles
- 250 firearms
- $48+ million worth of various currencies and cryptocurrencies
How it happened
In 2018, the FBI recruited
a former distributor of a different encrypted network that had just
gotten busted. The engineer was working on a new service, Anom, that
stripped mobile phones of their normal functions and disguised a secure
messaging app to look like a calculator.
- In exchange for a reduced sentence and $120k, the engineer gave the FBI a master key to access and save Anom messages.
As the FBI took down
other encrypted communication services, more criminals started to DM
using Anom's platform. The FBI also helped spread Anom by distributing
devices to 300+ gangs across 100 countries through middlemen. One
Australian fugitive, Hakan Ayik, aka the "Facebook gangster," was given
an Anom device by undercover agents and, after recommending it to many
associates, unwittingly became the FBI's top influencer.
Big picture: Europol
officials called it "one of the largest and most sophisticated law
enforcement operations to date in the fight against encrypted criminal
activities." Still, Anom represented just a fraction of criminal
communications.
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