FBI’s Encrypted Phone Company Spied on Criminals Worldwide

MadBret

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Criminal organizations around the world thought they were using the latest, most exclusive encrypted cellphone technology available to conduct business away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.​

June 08, 2021 •
Kristina Davis, The San Diego Union-Tribune
(Ryan Whisenhunt)
(TNS) — Criminal organizations around the world thought they were using the latest, most exclusive encrypted cellphone technology available to conduct business away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.

Instead, they were unwitting customers of a communications service that was secretly created by FBI agents and federal prosecutors in San Diego.

Whether it was coordinating drug trafficking, money laundering or murders, every message tapped out on the phones was sent not only to the intended criminal underworld recipients, but delivered right into the hands of investigators.


As Tuesday began on the other side of the world, first in New Zealand, Australia and later in Europe, hundreds of people were arrested as a result. Raids were ongoing into the night, and it was unclear if there were any arrests or charges in the United States.

The three-year operation was announced in a round of news conferences overseas and expected to culminate with a final one in San Diego Tuesday morning. The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to provide additional details until then.

The FBI led the effort while Australia provided crucial technical ability to decrypt the messages, according to Australian authorities.

"We worked hand-in-glove with the U.S. FBI to bring down some of the most significant criminals, not just here in Australia but around the world," Karen Andrews, Australia's Minister for Home Affairs, said in a news conference.

Some 9,000 law enforcement officers in 18 countries around the world were involved in the operation, which Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called "a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history" that will echo around the world.

In Australia, more than 525 search warrants were executed, and 224 people charged, including suspected members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and mafia organizations.

Twenty-one threats to kill were disrupted — including a potential machine-gun attack at a cafe — six clandestine labs dismantled and more than $45 million in cash seized in Australia.

"Essentially we've been in the back pockets of organized crime," said Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw. "It's given law enforcement a window into a level of criminality we've never seen before on this scale."

The fake company, called ANØN, marketed itself on a slick public-facing website, featuring a black cellphone equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The site was taken offline Monday afternoon as word of the arrests began to spread.

But not just anyone could become a customer. Undercover investigators solicited certain underworld "influencers" to get the custom phones into the hands of fellow criminals, and new users had to be vetted by known existing customers, according to a source close to the investigation.

The ploy matched tactics used by other end-to-end encryption communications businesses that had catered to criminal organizations, adding to the air of exclusivity and security. But there was also a practical reason: It kept the operation focused on criminal groups and ensured the conversations of legitimate users wouldn't be collected.

There were about 9,000 users of ANØN, including about 1,600 in Australia, said Kershaw.

The unprecedented worldwide effort, dubbed Operation Trojan Shield, is the final showpiece in a string of investigations that originated in San Diego, starting with the case of unlikely drug kingpin Owen Hanson.

Hanson was a one-time walk-on to the University of Southern California football team who had quietly parlayed high-profile relationships, charisma and business savvy into an international sports betting and drug-trafficking organization.

An undercover agent eventually infiltrated his inner circle and gained Hanson's trust enough to be provided an encrypted cellphone on which to talk business.

The phone was a product of Phantom Secure, an encryption service provider that turned Blackberries into ultra-secure messaging platforms on closed servers. Investigators in Canada, where Phantom Secure was based, and Australia had known it was a preferred communications device for criminal organizations but had struggled to crack the case.

The phone falling into the hands of a U.S. agent changed everything.

Once Hanson was arrested in 2015, the San Diego FBI — with help from Canada, Australia and others — targeted Phantom Secure's CEO Vincent Ramos.

When Ramos declined an offer to cooperate with investigators by building a back door into his devices for law enforcement access in 2018, the genesis of building an undercover network from scratch began to emerge.

(Ramos was ultimately sentenced in the U.S. to nine years in prison, and the case later spawned an espionage investigation into one of Canada's top security officials.)

With the seed of an idea, U.S. law enforcement and Australian Federal Police hammered out logistical, technical and bureaucratic challenges over meals and beer, according to a source close to the investigation.

Meanwhile, the FBI in San Diego was also trying to crack another encrypted service, Sky Global, which court documents say was designed to aid in the trafficking of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine by transnational organizations moving the drugs into Australia, Asia, Europe and North America.

Many of its users had migrated over to Sky Global, also known as SKY ECC, after European authorities decrypted a similar platform last year, Encrochat.

In March, Europe's law enforcement agency Europol announced that authorities in Belgium, the Netherlands and France had been secretly collecting messages on some 70,000 Sky Global phones for about a month. The massive wiretap operation revealed a litany of criminal schemes, authorities said, and resulted in numerous coordinated raids in Europe.

But the main indictment against Sky Global's CEO, along with an alleged former high-level distributor of the phones, landed in San Diego federal court. The CEO, Jean-Francois Eap, has denied that the platform is aimed at criminal users and said the phones at the center of the investigation were counterfeit.

The growth in demand for ANØN phones spiked after Sky Global went down, according to the source.

With ANØN, the goal of creating a shadow company was two-fold: dismantle organized crime by using communications as evidence, but also shake up trust in the proliferation of encryption services that cater to such users.

The blind trust that ANØN's users had in the system's security was clear by the nature of the messages, said Kershaw.

"All they talk about is drugs, violence, hits on each other, innocent people going to be murdered, running 1,000 kilos at this price," he said. "There was no attempt to hide behind any kind of codified conversation."

© 2021 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Code:
https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/fbis-encrypted-phone-company-spied-on-criminals-worldwide
 
I’m surprised but not shocked, they do this shit for kiddie porn all the time.. set up whole websites and get lots of people who are into it, then pull the rug out from under them using PM’s, collected data and post content as their evidence.
 
anyone affiliated with the US government is the enemy especially the FBI. Us goverment murdered a million innocent Serbians, Iraqis, spies on its own citiczens, then shot Ashley rabbit point blank and executed her in the capital under the guise of the terrorist (USA flag).

no thanks FBI, ill root for the cartels and kingpins, just not the thugs who burn down the cities who hate people who look like me
 
@rfan2020 You sound like one of those antifa fags. If I had to guess, I'd say you live in the Pacific northwest, hate yourself and feel guilty for being born white. Probably a card carrying BLM supporter... also probably one of those fruitcakes on video awhile back that were kissing black folks feet.

It sucks to get caught up in some bs. But when you choose to be a big time career criminal, which was generally who these FBI crypto phones were targeted towards, only complete morons would not be fully aware of the inherent risk involved in the business before deciding to try and be the next El Chapo.

I'm not mad at the cops for doing their jobs. I'm also not putting hits out on guys.

I don't like some of the shit our government has pulled and think it is, indeed, bs to mass spy on us presumably law abiding citizens.

But I also can't think of a better place to live on the planet. We have our flaws but we are working on them. I felt when Trump was elected and throughout his term, our country mostly moving back in the right direction.

I know other folks would strongly disagree but I really don't give a shit about the temper tantrum throwing, city burning, brick tossing, anti-American types until I finally decide to join their front line, oppositional counterparts and return the favor with an eye for an eye.

You choose to root for the cartels as long as they aren't burning down your neighborhood. But if they do wind up in your neighborhood, burning, looting and maiming everything in their path, you will be screaming for the police louder than the siren on the roof of the car that comes to save your ungrateful ass.
 
@rfan2020 You sound like one of those antifa fags. If I had to guess, I'd say you live in the Pacific northwest, hate yourself and feel guilty for being born white. Probably a card carrying BLM supporter... also probably one of those fruitcakes on video awhile back that were kissing black folks feet.

It sucks to get caught up in some bs. But when you choose to be a big time career criminal, which was generally who these FBI crypto phones were targeted towards, only complete morons would not be fully aware of the inherent risk involved in the business before deciding to try and be the next El Chapo.

I'm not mad at the cops for doing their jobs. I'm also not putting hits out on guys.

I don't like some of the shit our government has pulled and think it is, indeed, bs to mass spy on us presumably law abiding citizens.

But I also can't think of a better place to live on the planet. We have our flaws but we are working on them. I felt when Trump was elected and throughout his term, our country mostly moving back in the right direction.

I know other folks would strongly disagree but I really don't give a shit about the temper tantrum throwing, city burning, brick tossing, anti-American types until I finally decide to join their front line, oppositional counterparts and return the favor with an eye for an eye.

You choose to root for the cartels as long as they aren't burning down your neighborhood. But if they do wind up in your neighborhood, burning, looting and maiming everything in their path, you will be screaming for the police louder than the siren on the roof of the car that comes to save your ungrateful ass.

You have me all wrong.

BLM and antics are marxist left wing thugs. They are not anti government, they are communists who love goermnet and want communism and perks and free stuff for "slavery" that was forever ago.

I am a libertarian who does not want the government to control me, socially right wing and conservative, who is finally fed up with what america has become. BLM and antifa are the governments soldiers

USA Today - BLM- ANtifa- Government- Democrats = communist scum

Trump supporters- me- police - libertarians or conservative

The only thing I disagree with my fellow trump supporters is the American flag. That flag may have represented something good 200 years ago, but it is still the flag, and as of today it represents a communist police marxist state that locks down its own citizens, promotes BLM, homosexual agenda, etc, so I can't support that flag based on what it represents today.

The use censored and rendered trump powerless. The Democratic Party and their thugs (BLM and antifa), tech companies, and FBi are turning america into a woke police state with freedoms becoming less each day.
 
You have me all wrong.

BLM and antics are marxist left wing thugs. They are not anti government, they are communists who love goermnet and want communism and perks and free stuff for "slavery" that was forever ago.

I am a libertarian who does not want the government to control me, socially right wing and conservative, who is finally fed up with what america has become. BLM and antifa are the governments soldiers

USA Today - BLM- ANtifa- Government- Democrats = communist scum

Trump supporters- me- police - libertarians or conservative

The only thing I disagree with my fellow trump supporters is the American flag. That flag may have represented something good 200 years ago, but it is still the flag, and as of today it represents a communist police marxist state that locks down its own citizens, promotes BLM, homosexual agenda, etc, so I can't support that flag based on what it represents today.

The use censored and rendered trump powerless. The Democratic Party and their thugs (BLM and antifa), tech companies, and FBi are turning america into a woke police state with freedoms becoming less each day.
I wish this guy didn’t get banned, had just the right touch of schizophrenic to keep me interested.
 
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