Last month, the world’s largest organized crime take-down in history was conducted by the FBI and international partners. Using “ANOM”, an FBI-owned encrypted device company which was used and sold by over 300 criminal groups spread across over 100 countries, federal agents were able to “catalogue more than 27 million messages between users around the world who had their criminal discussions reviewed, recorded, and translated by the FBI,” according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release.
The intention of ANOM was to attract and monitor a global network of criminals to use the platform as a communication tool in discussing narcotic shipments and money laundering. The users, who falsely believed that ANOM was encrypted to avoid law enforcement, even went so far as to send each other photos of the drug shipments concealed in tuna cans and produce containers.
Once the FBI had gathered enough evidence from the investigation, they worked with global law enforcement agencies including the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Europol to make a total of “800 arrests; seizures of more than 8 tons of cocaine; 22 tons of marijuana; 2 tons of methamphetamine/amphetamine; six tons of precursor chemicals; 250 firearms; and more than $48 million in various worldwide currencies”. The sting, dubbed Operation Trojan Shield, took five years of groundwork and federal investigation.
In the US, an indictment was unsealed by a San Diego federal grand jury on May 28, 2021 that charges 17 of the alleged distributors of ANOM with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The defendants are all foreign nationals. As of now, only eight individuals have been taken into custody and authorities are searching for the remaining nine. The team at Padula Law will continue to monitor this historic case as it unfolds.
