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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.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 09 2021, @11:31AM
I'm fairly cynical to but when it comes to this I'm slightly more realistic. Yes I have listened to, and read the transcripts of when, these type of people talk. Just like a lot of normal people they do talk about doing a lot of stupid things -- including killing other people. But when normal people do it you can sort of dismiss it in a lot of cases cause it's just talk. But when these people actually plan and put up resources to get it done, being people that one can assume have done these things before or just operating in a world where violence and death is a more normal thing, or seen as an actual form of problem resolution, you can't really assume they are just smack talking each other.
In this case they more or less already stated that they sort of started as high up, and as high value, as they could and are now working their way down the ladder. I'm sure that eventually, or fairly soon, they'll make their way to the people that they want to or that will be willing to talk and make deals. Many of the objects seized might be legal to possess under normal circumstances but if they are bought with illegal money they are not. Seizing the goods is also a blow to their lifestyle and ego, a lot of them want to live (or at least present the illusion of living) a luxury lifestyle, so taking away things from them is in that regard proper.
In some regard the police are now just mindfucking the lot of them. After all would you trust any device at this point for your communication? They didn't trust each other before, now even less so and as a bonus now they are going to start to blame each other if you are the one that got them on one of these devices and networks. If you used one of them and the police have yet to kick down your door it probably tells you how far down the criminal totem-pole you are, but you shouldn't worry they'll come for you/them eventually. Then it's snitch-o-clock for sure. Cause all those ideas of brotherhood just goes out the window when you are alone in the interrogation room, then it's everyone going under the bus to save yourself. Some of them just can't stop talking fast enough.