Canadian sold phones to Australian gangs: court

The head of an encrypted phone company that sold devices used to facilitate murders and drug trafficking jailed in the US.

The head of an encrypted phone company that sold devices used in Australia to facilitate murders and drug trafficking has been jailed for nine years in the US.

Vincent Ramos’s Phantom Secure mobile phones became a tool of the trade for Australian criminals, who used an estimated 10,000 of his 20,000 devices sold around the world, confident their communications were secure.

Ramos was described by a judge in the US District Court in San Diego yesterday as “a very talented businessman” who “understood what he was doing was criminal”.

Prosecutors said the widespread use of his modified BlackBerry and Android phones by criminals was “staggering”, and a sentencing memo noted Phantom Secure devices were used to “co-ordinate violence, including murder”.

“For example the Hells Angels used Phantom Secure devices to co-ordinate several high-profile murders in Australia,” the memo says.

Law enforcement agencies shut down the Canada-based Phantom Secure network in March last year. Australian authorities at the time executed 19 search warrants across four states, seizing more than 1000 encrypted mobiles in raids targeting device distributors.

The Sydney murders of drug cook and Hells Angels associate Roy Yaghi, shot dead in a ute in 2012, and Hells Angels bikie Tyrone Slemnik, shot dead in a drive-by in 2013, were believed to have been planned on Phantom Secure devices.

Existing clients had to “vouch” for new clients, with a subscription fee charged of up to $3,000 every six months.

“We are f-ing rich man … get the f-ing Range Rover brand new. Cuz I just closed a lot of business,” Ramos said in a text message to an employee last year, after securing a deal with Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

Ramos, 41, a Canadian father of three young children, was arrested after investigations involving the US, Australia and Canada.

He has agreed to forfeit $US80 million ($A115 million) in cash, gold bars and other goods.

“I am sorry and accept responsibility for my actions that have led me here today,” he told judge William Hayes.

The court heard Ramos marketed and sold his devices to criminals, including Owen Hanson, the former University of Southern California footballer who created the violent criminal and drug trafficking enterprise ODOG.

ODOG shipped large quantities of cocaine to Australia.

Hanson was sentenced in 2017 to 21 years’ prison and his second-in-command, Giovanni “Tank” Brandolino, received an 87-month sentence.

The court was told US, Australian and Canadian authorities could not find one Phantom Secure customer who was not a criminal.

Phantom Secure encrypted phones were designed to thwart authorities and facilitate the distribution of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine to Australia, the US, Mexico, Canada, Thailand and Europe.

Servers were set up in Panama and Hong Kong to stifle law enforcement from detecting users.

Phantom Secure technicians gutted handsets of their original hardware and software and installed new encryption software and an email program.

Ramos admitted that at least 450 kilograms of cocaine was distributed using the devices.

Phantom Secure was “the first encrypted communication platform available on a wholesale scale in Australia, and was the largest single supplier to the Australian organised crime market”, federal police said.

With AAP.