WATCHING: THE DETECTIVES / THE ECONOMIST

Watching: The detectives

Police in 16 countries have arrested hundreds following a massive sting

Criminals used an encrypted communication system that America’s FBI owned and ran

ON FEBRUARY 25th, someone calling himself “TOM FORD” used Anom, an encrypted-messaging platform, to forward a message from another user called “Sion”. 

It read: “We are on standbys [sic] to receive the package today bro.” 

Applying for a warrant to search an email account that the two men used to exchange shipping documents, an FBI special agent said he believed the package in question contained six kilogrammes of cocaine due to be sent from California to Australia, and that while “TOM FORD” was probably located in Australia, “Sion” was likely in Armenia.

The cosmopolitan nature of organised crime in a globalised world calls for secure methods of international communication. 

“TOM FORD” and “Sion” were confident that Anom would keep them safe; they scarcely disguised their exchanges. 

They even exchanged photos of cocaine bricks. 

But, like thousands of other Anom users in more than 300 organised-crime groups in around 100 countries, they were making a calamitous mistake. 

Anom was owned and run by the FBI.

In a flurry of statements and press conferences on June 8th, that agency, along with other national and international law-enforcement bodies, revealed some details of their grand-scale sting. 

Over a period of three years, the FBI and police forces in 16 other countries—in particular, the Australian Federal Police—monitored 27m messages sent via Anom. 

“We have been in the back pockets of organised crime,” said the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Reece Kershaw.

Police eavesdropped on murder plots, weapons trading, money laundering and drug trafficking. 

In Australia alone, police claimed to have disrupted 21 murder plots, including a mass killing, thanks to Operation Trojan Shield, the code name for investigations arising from the scam. 

The operation has now ended. 

Officials said that police have arrested more than 800 suspects in 16 countries and seized more than 32 tons of drugs, including cocaine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. 

They also confiscated almost $50m in cash and cryptocurrencies.

Operation Trojan Shield is the most wide-ranging attack on underworld communications, but not the first.

Last year, the EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol, revealed that an operation initiated by French police had hacked a system known as EncroChat, which many criminals used. 

The hack has led police to arrest more than 1,000 people so far.

One reason so many criminals embraced Anom was that the FBI, along with agencies in Australia and Canada, dismantled a similar service called Phantom Secure three years ago. 

Anom relied on what the FBI terms “hardened encrypted devices”. 

Unlike smartphones, they cannot be used to make telephone calls or browse the internet. 

Their sole function is to send and receive coded electronic communications, and/or encode the data they store.

The breakthrough that launched Operation Trojan Shield came in 2018, when the FBI convinced Anom’s developer to turn informant in return for $120,000, plus $60,000 in expenses and the chance of a reduced prison sentence. 

The informant then gave the FBI access to the network that distributes hardened encrypted devices across the international underworld.

The introduction of Anom-equipped devices began in Australia and was reportedly aided, unwittingly, by an alleged narcotics kingpin, Hakan Ayik. 

He was said to have recommended Anom to associates, unaware that it was controlled by the FBI. 

They in turn recommended it to others. 

The 42-year-old Mr Ayik, the son of Turkish immigrants to Australia, disappeared abroad after being identified as a suspect in an investigation into heroin smuggling. 

He is believed to be living in Turkey.

If, as the Australian police claim, Mr Ayik was the Anom superspreader, he will have some explaining to do to those who adopted the system on his advice. 

Nor is he the only person likely to be left feeling queasy by the disclosure of Operation Trojan Shield. 

Henceforth, whatever communications systems criminals use, they will have to live with the nagging suspicion that it might be controlled by the men and women whose job it is to put them behind bars.