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Melbourne, Australia – Black-market devices only performed one function hidden behind the calculator app: sending encrypted messages and photos.
For years, law enforcement officials said, organized crime figures around the world have relied on the devices to organize international drug shipments, coordinate the smuggling of weapons and explosives, and negotiate murder under contract. Users are so confident in the security of the devices that they often lay out their plans not in code, but in plain language.
Unbeknownst to them, the entire network was run by the FBI
On Tuesday, global law enforcement officials revealed the three-year operation, during which they said they had intercepted more than 20 million messages, and arrested at least 800 people in more than a dozen countries.
In Australia, the effort has trap domestic and international organized crime groups and outlaw motorcycle gangs, with more than 200 people arrested, officials said. Authorities said hundreds more have been arrested in Europe, and US law enforcement officials are expected to announce more arrests later on Tuesday.
The operation, as described by Australian authorities and court documents in the United States, represents a breakthrough in law enforcement. Although authorities have hacked or shut down crypto-platforms in the past – such as the one called EncroChat that has been successfully hacked by police in Europe – this is the first known case that officials have taken control of a fully encrypted network since its creation.
“We’ve been in the back pockets of organized crime,” Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reese Kershaw said on Tuesday.
According to court documents, revealed by the Justice Department on Monday, the FBI operation has its origins in early 2018, after the FBI dismantled a Canada-based encryption service called Phantom Secure. Officials said that company provided encrypted cell phones to drug gangs and other criminal groups.
After seeing a void in the underground market, the FBI recruited a former Phantom Secure distributor who was developing a new encrypted communications system, called Anom. The informant agreed to work for the FBI and allow the bureau to gain control of the network for a possible prison sentence commutation, according to court documents. The documents said the FBI paid the informant $120,000.
Anom devices were mobile phones that were stripped of all normal functionality. Their only working app is disguised as a calculator function: after entering a code, users can send messages and photos with end-to-end encryption.
Working with Australian authorities, the FBI and the informant developed a “master key” that allows them to forward messages to a third country and decrypt them.
The authorities also relied on the informant to deliver devices to highly isolated criminal networks. In October 2018, the informant began providing the devices to three other distributors linked to organized crime in Australia.
Law enforcement officials said a big break came when they managed to get one of the devices into the hands of Hakan Ayek, an Australian who fled the country a decade ago and who police believe was directing drug imports from Turkey.
The user base has grown rapidly, and as of last month, there were about 9,000 active and used devices in more than 90 countries, according to the FBI. In all, more than 300 criminal gangs have used the devices, officials said, including in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
Jean-Philippe Lokoff, Deputy Executive Director of Europol, said the operation gave law enforcement “exceptional insight into the criminal landscape and will provide separate investigations.”
Australian authorities have acknowledged that Anom carried only a small percentage of the total volume of encrypted communications sent by criminal networks. But they said Anom had an advantage: Those running it were able to listen – directly – to the target audience and give users what they wanted.
After users talked about wanting smaller and newer phones, the authorities started providing them.
Australian officials said they disclosed the operation on Tuesday due to the need to disrupt the dangerous plots currently underway and because of the limited timeframes on which legal authorities have relied to intercept communications.
Anom previously featured sleek graphics and glossy videos reminiscent of Apple ads. On Tuesday, a new message appeared: Users who wanted to “discuss how to link your account to an ongoing investigation” could enter their account details.
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