Operation Ironside: FBI reveals Aussie drug traffickers’ secret messages

Aussie crooks used the AN0M app to message each other pictures of multimillion-dollar drug hauls, not realising the FBI was watching.

Australian drug traffickers used a police Trojan horse communications app to discuss their transport options for getting drugs into the country and brazenly sent photographs to each other of multimillion-dollar drug hauls, according to court documents.

An FBI file unsealed on Tuesday by the United States District Court has made public several communications by Australian users of the encrypted platform AN0M.

Intercepted messages sent by two Australian AN0M users

News Corp Australia revealed on Monday AN0M was posing as an encrypted app to help criminals do their business out of sight of law enforcement, but was secretly copying every message and allowing law enforcement unprecedented access to underworld dealings.

A police raid in Melbourne’s Cranbourne in relation to Operation Ironside.

In the first direct communications to emerge publicly, the public court filing by FBI shows two Australians discussing a cocaine supply by AN0M on January 4 last year.

Australian 1 tells Australian 2 that he believes another person “got it in’’, relating to a drug importation.

Australian 2 replied: “Your (sic) dreaming. You reckon. What he offer it to you for.”

Australian 1 then sends a photograph of hundreds of kilogram of cocaine marked with a Batman label.

Police raids in Australia as part of the global operation.

On March 23, 2020, another exchange took place between an Australian user and an unknown user, discussing the current price of cocaine.

Australian 3 wrote: “Ok sweet, i got a small job that popped up for [t]he building block” and “There is 2kg put inside french diplomatic sealed envelopes out of Bogotta [sic]” and “They have already got a few packages in.”

Australia 3 added: “Only issue is that COL takes 50/4 Partners including yourself will need to split other 50”

$1.8 million in cash seized during Operation Ironside South Australian arrests. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

(The FBI affidavit stated that this meant the Colombian distributors take 50 per cent of the profits while four other people split the other 50 per cent).

The conversation continued, with Australian 3 writing: “They can do it weekely [sic]” (meaning packages containing two kilograms can be sent every week).

Unknown replied that this sounded good.

Australian 3 then replied with three photos – one of cocaine and two of the apparent French diplomatic pouches.

The file also revealed three people had been chosen to distribute the AN0M app into the criminal underworld.

The Australian Federal Police, who worked out how to decrypt and collect the devices, have previously revealed only two “influencers’’ – an Australian known as “Mafia Man’’ and fugitive Sydney drug lord Hakan Ayik, who is hiding out in Turkey.

According to the FBI, the three people were targeted because they had previously distributed another encrypted device, Phantom Secure, which had been busted by law enforcement in 2018.

“These three individuals, relying on their expertise from distributing Phantom, and seeing a huge payday, agreed (to distribute AN0M),’’ the affidavit states.

It says Australia obtained a court order to legally monitor the devices in Australia and those with a clear nexus to Australia.

“Through the interception of these communications, the AFP penetrated two of the most sophisticated criminal networks in Australia,’’ it says.

“The AFP has shared generally with San Diego FBI the nature of conversations occurring over Anom, which included drug trafficking activity (including discussing the transportation of hundreds of kilograms of narcotics), firearms purchases, and other illegal activity. Moreover, as the FBI saw with Phantom Secure, according to Australian law enforcement, 100 per cent of Anom users in the test phase used Anom to engage in criminal activity.”

Police raids in connection with Operation Ironside.

Hundreds of crime lords across the globe were in custody on Tuesday as police in 18 countries moved in on drug traffickers, bikies and money-launderers caught using the Trojan horse encrypted app AN0M.

As the criminal underworld discovered their encrypted communications devices were actually a law enforcement trap and all their criminal plans had been spied on by the Australian Federal Police for the last three years, heavily-armed tactical police swooped.

Europol, the European Police Agency, called the Australian Federal Police-led operation the biggest coordinated police sting of its kind.

Officials from Europol, the FBI, Sweden and the Netherlands gave details of the European leg of the global sting at a press conference held at The Hague.

Europol Deputy Executive Director Jean-Phillipe Lecouffe said police from 16 European countries had arrested more than 800 suspects under Operation Trojan Shield/Greenlight, seizing more than $48 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.

AFP Commander Jennifer Hurst said it was “an incredibly proud day for law enforcement”.

“This is a watershed moment in global law enforcement history and a testament to what can be achieved through collaboration and trusted international partnerships,” she said.

In Germany, New Zealand and Sweden, police kicked in doors of homes, offices and warehouses, with photos emerging of handcuffed men being taken away in police cars in the German state of Hessen.

Across the ditch in New Zealand, 35 people were arrested including members of notorious bikie gangs the Comanchero, Mongrel Mob and Head Hunters. More than 900 charges were laid.

In Germany, more than 100 raids went on through the night, while in Sweden, tactical police were seen conducting raids on AN0M users in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Helsingborg. There were reports of raids in Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

Europol revealed officers had foiled 10 murder attempts in Sweden and had identified 80 suspects.

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