How the FBI and Australian police gained a front seat view of underworld workings in 90 countries
It was mid-2018 when a convicted narcotics importer met with FBI agents from San Diego and made them a tantalising offer: in exchange for a possible reduction in the importer’s sentence on other charges, would the bureau like a backdoor into the encrypted communications of a vast network of international organised crime groups?
The importer had invested a “substantial amount” of money in developing an encrypted device which could be used by criminals around the world to avoid the detection of police.
The new device, called ANoM, would be billed as a modified mobile phone, stripped of anything which could be compromised and fitted with customised encryption software that made it far more secure than anything else on the market.
The source planned to provide ANoM to an existing network of distributors linked to organised crime
