How global police tricked over 800 criminals into using fake encrypted phone
The sting, which included the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Dutch National Police, and the Swedish Police Authority, created Anom, an encrypted messaging service that criminals could use.
What is ANOM?
In a statement put out by Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, Anom was described as an “encrypted device company” that was developed “strategically” and operated “covertly”. According to the statement, the company grew to service over 12,000 encrypted devices to over 300 crime syndicates operating, including outlaw motorcycle gangs, Italian organised crime, and international drug trafficking organisations.
“The goal of the new platform was to target global organised crime, drug trafficking, and money laundering organisations, regardless of where they operated, and offer an encrypted device with features sought by the organised crime networks, such as remote wipe and duress passwords, to persuade criminal networks to pivot to the device,” the statement said.
According to a warrant application by the FBI, encrypted devices like these are “in high demand” among Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). The agency took down two companies — Phantom Secure and Sky Global –in 2018, creating room in the criminal market for a new encrypted device service. Enter Anom.
The FBI used a confidential informant with ties to these TCOs to distribute Anom devices to criminal organizations around the world. “Because encrypted communications devices exist to eschew law enforcement, the distribution of these devices is predicated on trust. This shadowy distribution system is designed, in part, to impede law enforcement’s ability to obtain the content from these devices,” the organization wrote in the warrant application cited above.
