That was the early, early stage of the idea.'ДЄfter overcoming the logistical and bureaucratic obstacles to getting the operation off the ground both in the US and in Australia, Young's team learned through the FBI-controlled app how criminal enterprises communicate and ship illegal drugs internationally - often times by hiding it in shipments of food items, like hollowed-out pineapples or tuna cans. 'That's around the time we were presented with a device and the opportunity to have a covert operation. 'Then we were at the stage where you can just shut everything down and move on to something entirely different, or think, 'Is there something left here to do?'' Young said. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.ДЄt that time, Young's team considered using the Phantom Secure technology for wiretaps, but he said it fell through. In 2018, Vincent Ramos, the chief executive of Phantom Secure, pleaded guilty to leading a criminal enterprise that facilitated the transnational importation and distribution of narcotics. That led the Justice Department to set its sights on Phantom Secure, a company they believed was creating encrypted devices and marketing them toward criminal enterprises that used them to freely share details about their operations.

The man kept the gambling and drug businesses siloed, and used an encrypted communications device to be especially secretive when it came to the trafficking, he said. The case got its start when investigators looking into the organizer of a gambling ring in 2015 realized the man was actually making most of his illegal proceeds from drug trafficking, according to Young. 'One of the best achievements of this entire operation was that it never got out,' Young said, given that more than a dozen nations participated. 'But one of the main goals was actually sort of that public relations goal: to show that the FBI is willing and able to do something like this, and that there's no reason to think they aren't doing it now or again.' 'Building the evidence on all these other people, and all the arrests and the seizures, and certainly the murders that were prevented was incredible,' Young said. Monitoring the FBI-controlled app, called ANOM, gave law enforcement an opportunity to learn the inner workings of transnational drug and firearms trafficking organizations.ДЄndrew Young, the former assistant US attorney who oversaw Operation Trojan Shield, told Insider a primary goal of the operation was to send a message to suspected criminals that encrypted technology will not protect them. The FBI partnered with law enforcement around the world to get 12,000 devices loaded with a fake encrypted messaging app into the hands of suspected criminals - and then read every word.

The arrests of more than 800 suspected drug and gun traffickers last week in one of the biggest police stings in history wasn't the only goal of the FBI developing a fake encrypted chat app for criminals, according to the former prosecutor in charge of the operation.

Fake app icons