A gigantic international operation against organized crime led to the arrest of 800 people, after communications between criminals who unknowingly used phones distributed by the FBI were deciphered, police agencies announced Tuesday..

“This information led to hundreds of police operations on a global scale over the past week from New Zealand and Australia to Europe and the United States,” said Europol deputy director of operations Jean-Philippe Lecouffe.. There were “more than 800 detainees, more than 700 places requisitioned and more than 8 tons of cocaine” confiscated, the head of the European police cooperation agency based in The Hague added at a press conference.

Over three years, thousands of telephones were provided that were originally supposed to allow criminals from the mafia, Asian organized crime syndicates, drug cartels, and outlaw motorcycle gangs to go undetected.. But this international operation promoted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), dubbed “Trojan Shield”, allowed the police to also receive some 20 million messages that the criminals sent to each other through the devices encrypted with the AN0M system.. The deputy director of the FBI, Calvin Shivers, in The Hague, stressed that the operation saved “more than 100” threatened lives.

The international operation arose after the US agency infiltrated similar systems called “Phantom Secure” and “Sky Global”, with which they accessed the communications of thousands of users, including criminal suspects.. “The closure of these two encrypted communication platforms created a significant void in the market for encrypted communications,” the New Zealand police explained..

According to US court documents cited by Vice, the FBI worked with people familiar with those environments to develop and distribute the AN0M devices through the “Phantom Secure” network by spreading 50 phones, especially in Australia.. The Australian Federal Police said that 224 people were arrested in that country alone, while six drug laboratories were closed and firearms and the equivalent of 35 million dollars (28.6 million euros) were seized..

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the operation “dealt a heavy blow to organized crime, not just in this country, but it will reverberate to organized crime around the world.”.

The phones had no email, call service, or GPS and could only be purchased on the black market for about $2,000.. A code sent by another AN0M user was also needed. “Criminals had to know another criminal to get a phone,” Australian police said in a statement..

To spread the devices, this body relied on people who had influence in criminal circles, including a drug lord who fled in Turkey.. “The devices circulated organically and became popular with criminals, who trusted the legitimacy of the app because well-known organized crime figures were defending them,” added the Australian police..

These influential criminals “put the Australian federal police in the pocket” of hundreds of suspected criminals, their boss, Reece Kershaw, congratulated himself.. At the same time, they spread rumors about the alleged vulnerability of a rival system named “Ciphr”. In total, 11,800 devices were distributed on all continents. Australia, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands are the countries that received the most. This infiltration was blown up in March 2021 when a blogger detailed the security flaws of AN0M, presented as a device linked to Australia, the United States and the other members of the FiveEyes alliance.. The publication was suppressed. Law enforcement officials in New Zealand, where 35 arrests were made, mostly for drug trafficking and money laundering, said it was “the world’s most complex organized crime crackdown to date.