Operation Ironside: No Americans arrested in massive ‘sting of the century’

The “sting of the century” left some of the world’s worst criminal organisations in ruins – but the operation hasn’t arrested a single American.

Hundreds of alleged criminals are facing years behind bars after they were brought down by an anonymous and encrypted app.

The global operation – called Operation Ironside here but known internationally as Trojan Shield – saw police pounce on more than 800 people around the world.

More than 250 Australians were part of that huge group, with accused bikies, mafia contacts and other underworld gang members arrested.

And while European and Australian police celebrated their massive arrests, things were different in the United States, where authorities are still working to access the messages intercepted on the encrypted app.

Police allege thousands of people used the app AN0M, only found on encrypted, “jailbroken” phones, for three years to organise crime and violence.

But in a stunning twist last week, police revealed the messaging app had been controlled by law enforcement from its inception three years ago.

The Australian Federal Police and the FBI in the US joined forces for the operation, with the Americans appearing to rely on Australia’s lack of privacy laws to access the millions of messages.

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Criminal syndicates targeted under AFP-led Operation Ironside. Picture: AFP

Operation Ironside raids at Thornhill Park. Picture: Victoria Police via NCA NewsWire

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According to court documents filed in the US District Court, the FBI used Australia and an unnamed “third country” to access more than 20 million messages from 11,800 devices in 90 countries.

But despite being able to access them, FBI agents were still unable to download or read any messages from AN0M due to the nation’s strict privacy laws.

Instead, it used the mystery “third country” to install a server to download communications from AN0M, which could then be copied and sent to the FBI.

President of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties Pauline Wright told the ABC there was a jarring difference between the two nations’ protections around human rights and privacy.

“It illustrates that Australia is an outlier in terms of protections for human rights and civil liberties,” she said.

“It seems to be the reason that Australia has been co-opted and used in this operation simply because we don’t have those protections.”

Ms Wright said while the hundreds of arrests were a positive, privacy of potentially innocent parties was being eroded.

“It’s good that we’re able to disrupt organised crime but in doing so what we are really concerned about is that innocent parties’ data could be obtained, stored and used in ways that they would never have foreseen.”

Further arrests made as part of Operation Ironside. Picture: AFP

US authorities indicted 17 foreign nationals last week, some known drug traffickers, who played key roles in distributing and popularising the AN0M handsets to others who trusted their expertise.

Asked if any Americans would face charges related to Operation Trojan Shield, the US Justice Department said there were “ongoing and international investigations” and would not comment further.

In another court document, an FBI agent’s affidavit showed the organisation has applied for a warrant to access a US gmail account.

The agent’s affidavit also shed more light on why the FBI and AFP joined forces.

The AFP joined the investigation in October 2018 after obtaining a court order to legally monitor AN0M devices held by Australians or those with “a clear nexus to Australia”.

The Australian court order noted that while it “did not allow for the sharing of the content with foreign partners” the AFP “shared generally” with the FBI what conversations were happening on the encrypted app.

Whether the evidence is admissible in Australia and in the US will now fall on the courts.

Court documents showed how blind the FBI was to Americans potentially using AN0M to commit crimes.

According to the document, the “third country” was sending copied messages from AN0M to the FBI three times a week by the end of 2019.

However, the data was not complete – with 15 AN0M users in America spared from surveillance.

“This data comprises the encrypted messages of all the users of AN0Ms with a few exceptions,” the document reads.

The FBI agent’s affidavit noted the AFP had permission to monitor communication on other AN0M phones who had “landed in the US” for “threats to life”.

Police conducting raids as part of Ironside. Picture: AFP

According to court documents from the US Justice Department, the FBI’s operation kicked off in early 2018, after the bureau dismantled a Canadian-based encryption service called Phantom Secure.

That tech company, police allege, had helped supply encrypted mobile phones to drug gangs, including Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel.

In March 2018, Phantom Secure’s CEO Vincent Ramos was indicted by grand jury and along with colleagues would eventually plead guilty to a raft of charges related to drug trafficking.

After destroying that method of communication, the FBI decided to fill the hole in the underworld market.

The FBI managed to recruit a former Phantom Secure distributor and hacker, who had been developing a new, encrypted communication platform called AN0M.

According to court documents, the “confidential human source” agreed to work for the FBI and to give them control of the network for the possibility of a reduced prison sentence.

He was also paid $120,000 for AN0M.