Australian police and the FBI smash the underworld with encrypted phone sting
Underworld rocked by police operation involving an encrypted phone sting that stopped slaying of a family of five at a cafe.
Police will use encrypted messages, secretly intercepted from criminals’ mobile phones during an audacious three-year operation, to try to finally close underworld murders and other serious unsolved crimes.
Investigators are also hunting down “trusted insiders” who facilitate the trafficking of illicit drugs into the country, and have gathered unprecedented intelligence on the workings of crime groups, including sections of the Italian mafia.
Australia’s organised crime networks are reeling from the police sting, described by Scott Morrison as a “watershed moment” in law enforcement history as authorities said they had foiled 21 murders, including a planned massacre of a family of five.
The operation involved an encrypted communications app developed, administered and monitored by investigators, exposing executions, kidnappings and industrial-scale drug and gun running and money laundering
Mafia figures, bikies, South American and Mexican drug cartels, Asian triads and Middle Eastern and European crime syndicates are allegedly caught up in the sting, using the “Trojan horse” app ANOM that was secretly operated by the FBI and monitored by the Australian Federal Police.
State police say the 25 million messages intercepted from ANOM could expand on information they already have to provide evidence to put people through court on serious and organised crime-related offences.
The plan is said to have been hatched by an AFP tech guru over beers with FBI agents in 2018, with agents planting pre-loaded mobile phones into the hands of criminals, including an Australian mafia figure as well as Sydney fugitive Hakan Ayik.
Ayik, based in Turkey after slipping out of the country while facing charges over a $230m heroin importation, promoted the app to an international network of criminals whose communications were then monitored by police.
Investigators intercepted and viewed ANOM communications in real time, with safeguards in place to flag words such as “kill” to detect threats against life.
AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw said the operation had led to the arrest of 224 people on 525 charges, and to the seizure of 104 firearms and weapons and almost $45m in cash. Six clandestine laboratories had been shut down.
Raids were also under way all over the world, including in the US, Britain, Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden. About 9000 police from 18 countries have been involved in the operation worldwide, half of those in Australia.
“For three years, this operation has been covert. Australian law enforcement has been arresting and charging alleged offenders and we have prevented tonnes of drugs from coming onshore,” Mr Kershaw said.
“We have arrested the alleged kingmakers behind these crimes, prevented mass shootings in suburbs and frustrated serious and organised crime by seizing their ill-gotten wealth.”
At a media conference on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said the operation had saved lives and “puts Australia at the forefront of the fight against dangerous organised criminals”.
Mr Morrison used the Operation Ironside success to push Labor to support a triage of stalled security bills in the parliament that would give the government more power to intercept encrypted data.
Mr Kershaw said the plot to massacre the family of five involved using a machine gun to mow them down in a cafe where other people could have been collateral damage.
State and federal police were “able to take out that individual before they were able to do that”, he said. It is understood the plot related to a drug debt.
Mr Kershaw said 1600 to 1700 people used ANOM in Australia, only about 5 per cent of the encrypted phones in the country. About 9000 ANOM devices were used globally, he said.
Police had detected “trusted insiders” using the app, which could include port, airport and mail workers, freight and logistics companies, lawyers, accountants and government officials.
Just one local chapter of an outlaw motorcycle gang was generating $20m a month bringing illicit drugs into the country.
There had been a “legal timeframe” on the operation and it was closed in a joint decision with international partners as threats to life escalated. “Ironside has arrested and charge … some of the most dangerous criminals to Australia,” Mr Kershaw said.
“We allege they are members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, Australian mafia, Asian crime syndicates and serious and organised crime groups. We allege they have been trafficking illicit drugs into Australia at an industrial scale.”
Police are on high alert for tensions between crime networks as their secret dealings are made public, and as new people step into the void when others are arrested.
Victoria Police assistant commissioner Bob Hill said nine patched members of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang had been arrested, including a sergeant-at-arms.
Some of those arrested were suspected to be responsible for four unsolved homicides in the state that had been “commissioned” by the gang, he said.
Additional reporting: Angelica Snowden, Richard Ferguson
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