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posted by janrinok on Tuesday June 08 2021, @10:17PM   Printer-friendly

FBI-controlled AN0M app ensnares scores of alleged criminals in global police sting:

On Tuesday, Australian police said they had carried out hundreds of search warrants in the past 24 hours and arrested 224 people, with simultaneous stings taking place in Europe and the United States. New Zealand police said they detained 35 people, including top members of criminal gangs.

For nearly three years, law enforcement officials have been sitting in the back pocket of some of the world's top alleged crime figures. Custom cellphones, bought on the black market and installed with the FBI-controlled platform, called AN0M, circulated and grew in popularity among criminals as high-profile crime identities vouched for its integrity.

The FBI in the past has dismantled encrypted platforms used by criminals to communicate, and infiltrated others. This operation saw the FBI create a closed encrypted app, AN0M, to fill the void and to target organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering activities across the globe by monitoring people's communications about their criminal offending.

(...) The users believed their AN0M devices were secured by encryption. Rather, they were feeding criminal intelligence directly to law enforcement agents.

"Essentially, they have handcuffed each other by endorsing and trusting AN0M and openly communicating on it — not knowing we were watching the entire time," Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said.

The global operation, known as Special Operation Ironside in Australia and Trojan Shield in the United States, has allegedly exposed criminals linked to South American drug cartels, Triad groups in Asia, and criminal syndicates based in the Middle East and Europe.

ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app

More than 800 suspected criminals have been arrested worldwide after being tricked into using an FBI-run encrypted messaging app, officials say. The operation, jointly conceived by Australia and the FBI, saw devices with the ANOM app secretly distributed among criminals, allowing police to monitor their chats about drug smuggling, money laundering and even murder plots. Officials called it a watershed moment.

Targets included drug gangs and people with links to the mafia. Drugs, weapons, luxury vehicles and cash were also seized in the operation, which was conducted across more than a dozen countries. This included eight tons of cocaine, 250 guns and more than $48m (£34m) in various worldwide currencies and cryptocurrencies.

[...] The FBI began operating an encrypted device network called ANOM, and covertly distributed devices with the chat app among the criminal underworld via informants. The idea for the operation came after two other encrypted platforms were taken down by law enforcement agencies, leaving criminal gangs in the market for new secure phones. The devices were initially used by alleged senior crime figures, giving other criminals the confidence to use the platform.

Also at the Associated Press and The Guardian.

See also: Hakan Ayik: The man who accidentally helped FBI get in criminals' pockets

Australian police have told local media that the man who unwittingly helped to distribute the FBI-run encrypted messaging app was a fugitive named Hakan Ayik. Alleged to be a drugs kingpin himself, officials say Mr Ayik was identified as a key influencer and given access by undercover agents to a handset which he then recommended to other criminal associates. "He was identified because of his standing within the underworld," a senior investigator quoted by the Australian Telegraph said. "He was a primary target as someone who was trusted and was going to be able to successfully distribute this platform."

It is reported that he has been living abroad in Turkey for years and police have urged him to come forward for his own safety. "Given the threat he faces, he's best off handing himself into us as soon as he can," Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said.


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  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by bradley13 on Wednesday June 09 2021, @04:41AM (4 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday June 09 2021, @04:41AM (#1143428) Homepage Journal

    Wow, amazing, great! They're arresting criminals!! Eleventy!!!

    Wait.

    So, the FBI eavesdropped on thousands of people, intercepting and reading their messages. They had warrants for that, outlining the specific reasons why they were eavesdropping on each particular person? Signed by judges in the proper jurisdictions? Oh, I guess they forgot...

    Look, stopping crime is all fine and dandy. However, indiscriminate actions like this violate all sorts of guarantees of individual rights. Even if the FBI promoted Anom in the criminal underworld, some number of users will have been geeks or people concerned about their privacy. And even criminals have rights. There are procedures to be followed; that's what differentiates law enforcement from vigilantism.

    The UN Declaration of Human Rights includes both the presumption of innocence and this phrase: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence". Similar guarantees are found in the documents underlying most governments. In the case of the US, it is the 4th amendment to the Constitution.

    When can we look forward to seeing FBI officials prosecuted for this gross violation of people's rights?

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Wednesday June 09 2021, @11:14AM (2 children)

    by looorg (578) on Wednesday June 09 2021, @11:14AM (#1143484)

    You seem to have misunderstood something, or have a very different view on things. This device was not sold to the public. You could not walk into a store and buy one. If you had one and was connected to their invite only network you are a criminal. The device couldn't even make normal phone calls, it was only for communicating with others of these devices. So it will probably be quite hard to make the case that this was some mass-surveillance operation or dragnet that monitored a lot of innocent people and their conversations.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @07:33PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @07:33PM (#1143658)

      What kind of stupid faggot supports the scum at the FBI? Are you fucking retarded? All they do is create fake criminals and terrorists: when they're not out shooting mothers holding babies in the head, killing little boys dogs, or spraying them up the back with an mp5, or maybe burning some kids alive in Waco, TX. Fuck you, you stupid slave, traitor, piece of shit.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 10 2021, @02:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 10 2021, @02:22AM (#1143772)

        Aww incel is all angry today. Oh wait, that is every day.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 11 2021, @11:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 11 2021, @11:48AM (#1144221)

    "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence"

    It seems like privacy and correspondence are separate things, and they are not to be separately interfered with. Ok.

    One might make the claim that these criminals had not had their correspondence 'interfered with' on the basis that they were indeed able to talk and hear each other. Messages were passed intact, it's just that the police read them also.

    One might further claim that privacy does not traditionally apply as a concept to correspondence.

    This is because: once sent, it is impossible to be sure that *only* your intended recipient will receive your message, in fact, you should rightfully be satisfied by them merely receiving it unmoddified (i.e. not 'interfered' with) - as opposed to the alternative of simply failing to be received. Privacy in correspondance amounts to a 'hope', and isn't reflective of reality - otherwise, why would post cards exist? And hell, isn't this is reason for classical stenographic coding, so you can send a secret message in plain sight - or encryption, where you don't care if someone else knows you're sending a secret message, so long as they probably can't read it?

    In the end, stenography makes this a temporary victory.

    I think it's justification enough that they were able to save the lives of a family of five - probably the listeners becoming sure that the planning for that hit was sufficiently likely was what precipitated them to finally act.

    I have personal experience of narrowly surviving a murder attempt.

    I can therefore tell you, first hand, that you will hopefully never realise just how much you really want to live -- until you suddenly realise you are about to die, unless someone else changes their mind.

    I got lucky - the guy wasn't a murderer, he was just a scared kid following orders from someone who terrorised him.

    I'm the sort of person who, in a pub game of pool - can occasionally jag ludicrously unlikely trick shots, but most of the time I'm sub par.

    I now realise, that day - I totally jagged an ultra-high difficulty, hostage release negotiation. Which I only know now because I have studied such things (Chris Voss -- google him. Buy his book - basic skill at making deals when you don't have any power ought to be taught to kids at highschool level as a matter of course, being without it from ignorance puts you at such a disadvantage, well, maybe it's just me, but I buy copies of his book for friends and family).

    Anyway, I managed to interrupt him, and then negotiate for my life.

    Lucky. And I am sure there are many, many people who never get that lucky.

    Back to the topic at hand:

    Ok, so some people got themselves arrested for dealing in things they knew they could be arrested for.

    Their choice.

    That you feel that certain things shouldn't be grounds for arrest I understand.

    But again - they accepted that risk.

    This action saved multiple innocent people from - at best - sharing my experience.

    Please believe me - just sparing them from having to live with surviving that kind of situation, if they got as lucky as I: It's justification Enough.

    Compared to that being raped wasn't so bad. (The reason why he wanted me out of the way).

    Sure, that was no picnic: He literally 'ripped me a new one', leading to multiple ongoing medical issues / disorders.

    But it's the PTSD from nearly being murdered that really stands on its own.

    So in my book - these cops did good.

    I would maintain that no-ones human rights were violated: it was more a case of just giving the criminals 'enough rope'.