Pretty incredible story. Hats off to the FBI and other institutions.

Link to the story in the tweet...



https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/n...d-communication

LMAO. Crooks promoted it to each other because it was so reliable!

FBI Snooped on Criminals Using Encrypted Messaging App
By Paola Rosa-Aquino


For nearly three years, the FBI covertly ran an encrypted messaging app that tricked criminals into divulging their illegal activities on a massive scale. Data pulled from the honeypot led to hundreds of arrests across 18 countries, authorities revealed Tuesday.

The app, known as An0m, claimed to offer its criminal clientele secure communications — almost like an illicit WhatsApp. In reality, the FBI surveilled the platform for clandestine conversations on organized crime, drug trafficking, and money laundering. “Essentially, we have been in the back pockets of organized crime and operationalized a criminal takedown like we have never seen,” Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw said at a press event. The global operation was code-named Trojan Shield in the United States and Europe and Special Operation Ironside in Australia.

The FBI and AFP designed the communications platform to entice crime gangs by suiting their needs for secure, encrypted communications. A May 18 affidavit filed by FBI special agent Nicolas Cheviron said the FBI, the AFP, and their developer source “built a master key into the existing encryption system which surreptitiously attaches to each message and enables law enforcement to decrypt and store the message as it is transmitted.”

“It has a good reputation among criminals. They mutually promote it as the platform you should use for its absolute reliability,” Jannine van den Berg, chief commissioner of the national unit of the Dutch police, said at a press event. Indeed, all told, there were 20 million messages from more than 11,000 devices. “But nothing was further from the truth,” van den Berg added.

More than 800 suspects were arrested worldwide in “one of the largest and most sophisticated law-enforcement operations to date in the fight against encrypted criminal activities,” Europol, the agency that coordinates police activity among the 27 European Union countries, said in a press release. Internationally, the operation seized 250 firearms, 55 luxury cars, and $48 million in cash and cryptocurrency, plus 22 tons of marijuana, eight tons of cocaine, and two tons of methamphetamine and amphetamine.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/fbi-snooped-on-criminals-using-encrypted-messaging-app.html

Cool story, but shouldn't they have kept it a secret? Guessing they can no longer use it as the crooks will now know about it

That was my thought.

Kind of sad though, fully expected to open this and read how they were finally going after all of the rich and famous friends of Jeffrey Epstein.. guess not.

From what I saw reported they were beginning to become suspicious of the phones and the FBI felt they needed to move in.

No, Trump is still safe on that one.

And even though his lease expired 5 months ago, I see he still has lots of heads to live in rent free around here.

Considering he's running the party and they're continuing with his lies and conspiracies, anyone thinking he should be ignored are only fooling themselves. Just because one side purposefully lives in denial of the control he still holds doesn't mean they're actually making a point by claiming everyone else should do the same.

I think they should keep doing it and letting everyone know when busts happen. Might deter them from using other non FBI apps. They wont trust any app if it keeps happening. Take away one of their tools.