9,000 Law Enforcement Officers Developed A Fake Messaging App That Criminals Were Told Was 100% Encrypted. Turns Out It CC’d Every Message To The FBI

Mint- It took $120,000 plus expenses, and the opportunity for a reduced prison sentence, for the smartphone developer to collaborate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2018 and kick-start Operation Trojan Shield, according to a court document.

Three years later, the investigation involving 9,000 law enforcement officers from 17 countries saw authorities monitor 27 million messages from 12,000 devices in 100 countries and track the activities of more than 300 organised crime groups, the European Union's law enforcement agency, Europol, said in a statement.

To date, there have been more than 800 arrests and the seizure of more than eight tonnes of cocaine, 22 tonnes of cannabis, two tonnes of synthetic drugs, 250 guns, 55 luxury vehicles and over $48 million in cash and cryptocurrencies, Europol said.

More arrests and seizures are expected, it said.

The U.S. court document - an affidavit from an FBI special agent first published by Vice News - says the "confidential human source", a former drug trafficker, had been creating a new hardened encrypted phone with a bespoke app called ANOM, also styled An0m.

The source came on board after authorities dismantled the Phantom Secure encrypted smartphone network and arrested its CEO in 2018.

For at least a decade, organised crime groups have used phones like Phantom Secure to organise drug deals, hits on rivals and launder illicit earnings without detection, police say. Among many of the phones' features, content can be remotely wiped if they are seized.

But as one model was put out of business, new ones would enter the lucrative market.

This story is fucking bananas. 

Vice lead the way detailing "Operation Ironside" as it was dubbed and I highly recommend reading the full story, and they used about 10,000 words where as I'll try not to lose your attention and just give you the 11pm sports highlight package.

The codename for this was "Trojan Shield" which I'm kind of confused by since the Operation was "Ironside" but whatever. 

The idea came about when members of our prestigious FBI were sharing beers with their Australian counterparts.

The app, created by an independent developer and named AN0M, promised users an “ultra-secure” communications network that was impervious to outside surveillance. Rumour has it, according to Australia’s federal police commissioner Reece Kershaw, that Australian police and FBI agents were drinking beers together in 2018 when they hatched a plan to exploit the communications network for their own ends: by surreptitiously taking control of AN0M and using it as window into criminal activities.

“I wasn’t there,” Kershaw told reporters on Tuesday, “but as you know some of the best ideas come over a couple of beers.”

(sidebar- Foster's fucks)

I think I speak for us all when I say the big surprise here was that the app was actually called "AN0M", and not Boost Mobile.

So from that beautiful brainstorming session, they needed a way to get the app into criminal's hands. A "Trojan Horse" if you will.

They found the perfect mark for their honeypot in the unwitting fugitive drug trafficker Hakan Ayik.

Ayik is the founding member of the “Aussie Cartel” – a syndicate formed by some of Australia’s most wanted crime bosses that smuggles an estimated $1.5 billion AUD worth of drugs into the country each year – and is currently Australia’s most wanted priority target. He recommended AN0M to criminal associates, who would purchase mobile devices that had been preloaded with the app on the black market. 

These phones could not make calls or send emails, and could only send messages to another device that had the same app, according to a statement by the Australian Federal Police (AFP). Criminals needed to know a criminal to get a device. They would then use the encrypted messaging software to send messages, distort messages and take videos.

High-profile organised crime figures vouched for the app’s integrity – and by the time authorities swooped more than 10,000 people were using AN0M devices across the world, including more than 1,600 in Australia.

Turns out this guy was developing another app when they picked him up. One that was capable of doing pretty much the same shit "AN0M" did. Also turns out that these things are way more common than a regular jamoke like me knew about I guess.

The source came on board after authorities dismantled the Phantom Secure encrypted smartphone network and arrested its CEO in 2018.

For at least a decade, organized crime groups have used phones like Phantom Secure to organize drug deals, hits on rivals and launder illicit earnings without detection, police say. Among many of the phones' features, content can be remotely wiped if they are seized.

When one model gets put out of business, new ones enter the lucrative market.

Prodded by authorities, the developer-turned-informant tapped his trusted distributors, who targeted the Australian market. They settled on a soft launch in October 2018. The developer gave the distributors only 50 devices to sell. Seeing a "huge payday", they agreed, according to the affidavit.

This is where it starts to get nuts. 

We're talking about some of the most brilliant criminal masterminds in the world, people and organizations who have eluded law enforcement for decades, signing up for the friends and family package of some off-market brand phone being shopped by other criminals and called "AN0M".

“These criminal influencers put the AFP in the back pocket of hundreds of alleged offenders,” said Kershaw. “Essentially, they have handcuffed each other by endorsing and trusting AN0M and openly communicating on it – not knowing we were watching the entire time.”

Did nobody's spidey sense tingle? Nobody's antennae went up that hey, this shit is probably too good to be true? "If we know about it, then the authorities have got to know about it too". No? Ok fuck me what do I know?

As the AFP monitored the messages and photos shared on the devices, "100% of ANOM users in the test phase used ANOM to engage in criminal activity", the affidavit said. Business grew organically, by word-of-mouth. Soon overseas criminals were flocking to use the ANOM phone.

100% of users. Laugh out loud. Imagine the FBI guys who'd devoted their life to catching scumbags like this sitting back watching these texts just stream in to them? Their dicks must have been harder than a railroad spike in the North Pole.

And these guys fucking sang on this thing. Oh boy did they sing. Kershaw further noted that conversations on the app were "brazen." So brazen that they would just openly discuss monster drug deals and plotting murders. 

“It would be like ‘I need 1,000 kilos at this price’… no attempt to hide behind any codified sort of conversation,” he said. “It was there to be seen – including ‘we’ll have a speedboat that you’ll meet you at this point, this is who’ll do this,’ and so on.” 

Since 2018, Operation Ironside has led authorities to seize 3.7 tonnes of drugs, 104 weapons, $44,934,457 million in cash and assets expected to run into the millions of dollars. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that the operation had “struck a heavy blow against organised crime. Not just in this country, but one that will echo around organised crime around the world,” and described it as “a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history.”

Reminds me of one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite movies ever. Artie Piscano in Casino.

Guy gave the feds every single thing down to the most minute detail via wiretap and the impeccable books he kept. 

They're saying that the sentences carried out against everybody they're rounded up so far will stretch into thousands of years combined. 

Search warrants were also executed across New Zealand in what local police said was the “world's most sophisticated law enforcement action against organized crime to date,” and the FBI similarly worked with 18 other police organisations worldwide as part of a global operation called Trojan Shield. More arrests are expected both within Australia and abroad under a coordinated global response. 

And like it always goes, once one domino falls, they all start to. Infighting has begun amongst all the organizations and within them individually. 

“They all turn on each other,” he said, “[and] there’s no doubt going to be some tension within the whole system about who owes what drug debt and so on.”

So authorities are expecting more and more fall out to come from this.

And of course, the trails also lead high up to people in government in some cases.

The special agent's affidavit, and the AFP's Kershaw, said criminals used the phones openly, often not even using code words and frequently sharing photos of massive drug consignments and details of how they would be transported.

Among the images shared in the affidavit were mounds of blocks of illicit drugs and a diplomatic pouch identified in the court document as French and said to be used to transport cocaine from Colombia. There was also evidence of corrupt government officials and police.

Crime groups were being "notified of anticipated enforcement actions", the affidavit said.

The French. Shocker.

(sidebar- also just to put into context, 8 tons is a fuck load of coke. One ton = 2,000 lbs. A midsize sedan weighs about a ton. Again, lot of cocaine we're talking here.)

My only question is why did they expose this and make it all public? Why not just keep shush on it and continue the game? Now that you've announced what you were doing to the world, criminals are just going to figure something else out. I get that it's a perpetual cat and mouse game but couldn't "AN0M" or its successor still have had legs to it? 

That's the only real question I took away from the Vice piece. Which again, highly recommend reading. 

All this just proves once again- "Loose lips sink ships"