Quote:Law enforcement officials from dozens nations across the world executed one of the most sophisticated crime stings in history late on Monday and during the early morning hours on Tuesday, resulting in the arrests of hundreds of criminals around the world.

“The operation by Australian and European police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the global narcotics trade,” Reuters reported. “Over 800 suspected members of organized crime gangs were arrested and $148 million in cash seized in raids around the world. Tons of drugs were also seized.”

The operation was conceived by Australian law enforcement officials and the FBI in 2018. The FBI secretly distributed encrypted phones, which had the app ANoM installed on them, to criminal organizations that allowed authorities to monitor all communications on the devices over a span of over a year and a half.

“ANoM could only be found on phones bought through the black market, which had been stripped of the capability to make calls or send emails,” CNN reported. “The phones could only send messages to another device that had the app and criminals needed to know another criminal to get a device.”
“Over the last 18 months the FBI provided criminal organizations with over 300 encrypted devices in over 100 countries that allowed us to monitor their communications,” FBI Assistant Director Calvin Shivers said. “Not only have we heard about the number of arrests and the number of seizures, but over 100 threats to life that were mitigated.”

“Europol said police from a total of 16 countries launched raids on the basis of evidence from the phones, around 12,000 of which were distributed worldwide,” AFP reported. “Australian police said the supposedly hardened encrypted devices were handed out to operatives within the mafia, Asian crime syndicates, drug cartels and outlaw motorcycle gangs as part of the elaborate FBI-led plot.”

“Today, Australia is a much safer country because of the extraordinary outcome under Operation Ironside,” AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said. “It highlights how devastatingly-effective the AFP is when it works with local and global partners, and takes its fight against transnational organized crime offshore. This world-first operation will give the AFP, state and territory police years of intelligence and evidence. There is also the potential for a number of cold cases to be solved because of Operation Ironside.”

“However, tomorrow, and in the future, law enforcement will come up against serious challenges,” Kershaw said. “AN0M was an influential encrypted communications app but there are even bigger encrypted platforms that are being used by transnational and serious organized criminals targeting Australia. They are almost certainly using those encrypted platforms to flood Australia with drugs, guns and undermine our economy by laundering billions of dollars of illicit profit. Organized crime syndicates target Australia, because sadly, the drug market is so lucrative. Australians are among the world’s biggest drug takers.”

“One of the causes behind domestic violence, sexual assault, neglect of children and unspeakable tragedy, is illicit drugs,” he continued. “Our first responders, our teachers and every Australian should be able to go to work and live in our communities without being harmed by an individual under the influence of dangerous drugs.”

Link

Started by Australians and FBI in 2018? Thank you Trump! Will he get credit?? Nope

"It happened under Biden. That means it was his doing all along! Thanks Joey for saving the world!" This is what you will see if CNN and MSNBC report on this story. Guaranteed.

This is one of the ones that they cannot give JB credit for, so it will go largely unreported.


JB can't take credit, so the media won't give credit!

(06-08-2021 09:51 AM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  

Quote:Law enforcement officials from dozens nations across the world executed one of the most sophisticated crime stings in history late on Monday and during the early morning hours on Tuesday, resulting in the arrests of hundreds of criminals around the world.

“The operation by Australian and European police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the global narcotics trade,” Reuters reported. “Over 800 suspected members of organized crime gangs were arrested and $148 million in cash seized in raids around the world. Tons of drugs were also seized.”

The operation was conceived by Australian law enforcement officials and the FBI in 2018. The FBI secretly distributed encrypted phones, which had the app ANoM installed on them, to criminal organizations that allowed authorities to monitor all communications on the devices over a span of over a year and a half.

“ANoM could only be found on phones bought through the black market, which had been stripped of the capability to make calls or send emails,” CNN reported. “The phones could only send messages to another device that had the app and criminals needed to know another criminal to get a device.”
“Over the last 18 months the FBI provided criminal organizations with over 300 encrypted devices in over 100 countries that allowed us to monitor their communications,” FBI Assistant Director Calvin Shivers said. “Not only have we heard about the number of arrests and the number of seizures, but over 100 threats to life that were mitigated.”

“Europol said police from a total of 16 countries launched raids on the basis of evidence from the phones, around 12,000 of which were distributed worldwide,” AFP reported. “Australian police said the supposedly hardened encrypted devices were handed out to operatives within the mafia, Asian crime syndicates, drug cartels and outlaw motorcycle gangs as part of the elaborate FBI-led plot.”

“Today, Australia is a much safer country because of the extraordinary outcome under Operation Ironside,” AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said. “It highlights how devastatingly-effective the AFP is when it works with local and global partners, and takes its fight against transnational organized crime offshore. This world-first operation will give the AFP, state and territory police years of intelligence and evidence. There is also the potential for a number of cold cases to be solved because of Operation Ironside.”

“However, tomorrow, and in the future, law enforcement will come up against serious challenges,” Kershaw said. “AN0M was an influential encrypted communications app but there are even bigger encrypted platforms that are being used by transnational and serious organized criminals targeting Australia. They are almost certainly using those encrypted platforms to flood Australia with drugs, guns and undermine our economy by laundering billions of dollars of illicit profit. Organized crime syndicates target Australia, because sadly, the drug market is so lucrative. Australians are among the world’s biggest drug takers.”

“One of the causes behind domestic violence, sexual assault, neglect of children and unspeakable tragedy, is illicit drugs,” he continued. “Our first responders, our teachers and every Australian should be able to go to work and live in our communities without being harmed by an individual under the influence of dangerous drugs.”

Link

Started by Australians and FBI in 2018? Thank you Trump! Will he get credit?? Nope

"It happened under Biden. That means it was his doing all along! Thanks Joey for saving the world!" This is what you will see if CNN and MSNBC report on this story. Guaranteed.

I thought Trump hated the FBI and didn't trust them?

This can't be his doing.

Quote:In an impressive global effort, law enforcement agencies across the world announced on Tuesday that they had arrested over 800 alleged criminals in a sting known as “Trojan Shield” in the United States and Europe and “Special Operation Ironside” in Australia.

As reported by The Washington Post, the operation exposed “alleged drug syndicates, contract killers and weapons dealers,” across 16 countries, leading to the seizure of “8 tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and cannabis resin, 2 tons of synthetic drugs, 6 tons of synthetic drugs precursors, 250 firearms, 55 luxury vehicles and over $48 million in various worldwide currencies and cryptocurrencies.”

But how did they achieve this feat of law enforcement? The answer may surprise you.

The international sting was made possible by an encrypted messaging app which was — to the dismay of those arrested — actually launched and run by the FBI.

Working alongside Australian and European authorities, the FBI set up a company called “AN0M,” which was then installed on phones which had been updated to remove any other methods of communication. These phones were then slowly distributed to criminals, with the devices growing in popularity among criminal organizations.

While the users believed their communication was protected by encryption infrastructure, their messages were actually visible to law enforcement agencies. As Europol explained in a press release, “The FBI and the 16 other countries of the international coalition, supported by Europol and in coordination with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, then exploited the intelligence from the 27 million messages obtained and reviewed them over 18 months while ANOM’s criminal users discussed their criminal activities.”

What makes this case particularly notable is that the law enforcement agencies leveraged encrypted communication devices to their benefit, while such technology is usually used to engage in criminal activity and avoid government control or legal consequences.

“Encrypted criminal communications platforms have traditionally been a tool to evade law enforcement and facilitate transnational organized crime,” said Calvin Shivers, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “The FBI and our international partners continue to push the envelope and develop innovative ways to overcome these challenges and bring criminals to justice.”

The scale of the international effort also deserves praise. As the press release noted, this operation “is one of the largest and most sophisticated law enforcement operations to date in the fight against encrypted criminal activities,” with “a series of large-scale law enforcement actions” being “executed over the past days across 16 countries resulting in more than 700 house searches, more than 800 arrests and the seizure of over 8 tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and cannabis resin, 2 tons of synthetic drugs (amphetamine and methamphetamine), 6 tons of synthetic drugs precursors, 250 firearms, 55 luxury vehicles and over $48 million in various worldwide currencies and cryptocurrencies.”

Link

irony: doesn't mean dick to succeed and prosper