Security News > 2021 > June > Feds Secretly Ran a Fake Encrypted Chat App and Busted Over 800 Criminals
In a huge sting operation, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Australian Federal Police ran an "Encrypted chat" service called ANoM for almost 3 years to intercept 27 million messages between criminal gang members globally.
"For almost three years, the AFP and the FBI have monitored criminals' encrypted communications over a Dedicated Encrypted Communications Platform," AFP said.
ANoM is said to have been intentionally created to fill the vacuum left by Phantom Secure, another encrypted phone service dismantled by the FBI in 2018, thereby allowing the agencies to monitor the conversations without the criminals' knowledge.
Operation Ironside follows similar law enforcement actions that involved infiltrating encrypted chat platform EncroChat to monitor millions of encrypted messages sent by organized crime networks through the platform.
The FBI used a confidential human source, who had previously sold phones from both Phantom Secure and Sky Global to criminal organizations and had "Invested a substantial amount of money into the development of a new hardened encrypted device", to distribute the devices to criminal networks.
"After the takedown of Sky ECC in March 2021, many organised crime networks sought a quick encrypted replacement for a communication platform that would allow them to evade law enforcement detection," Europol said.