FBI secretly ran phone encryption program used by organized crime, global sting yields 800 arrests
WASHINGTON – Hundreds are facing charges after an elaborate, years-long sting in which the FBI secretly ran a phone encryption program that officials say criminals unwittingly used to facilitate drug transactions worldwide.
ANOM, the FBI's encrypted device company, was used by more than 300 criminal organizations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe that unknowingly communicated about narcotics shipments and exchanged incriminating pictures, including ones showing cocaine hidden in food shipments, according to the Justice Department.
Eight hundred have been arrested from around the world. Several tons of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine have been seized, as well as different currencies totaling $48 million, officials said.
"This was an unprecedented operation in terms of its massive scale, innovative strategy and technological and investigative achievement," Randy Grossman, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said Tuesday when officials announced the unsealing of federal indictments in San Diego. "Hardened encrypted devices usually provide an impenetrable shield against law enforcement surveillance and detection. The supreme irony here is that the very devices that these criminals were using to hide from law enforcement were actually beacons of law enforcement."
