How a Fake FBI-Encrypted Device Ensnared Criminals Around the World

The global sting operation billed as "Trojan Shield" that led to the arrests of hundreds of criminals this week began with the takedown of an encrypted device maker catering to drug traffickers around the world.  

In 2018, the FBI dismantled Canada-based Phantom Secure, forcing its customers — at the time estimated at more than 10,000 — to look for other encrypted apps.    To fill the void, the FBI in late 2019 recruited a "confidential human source" to launch its own hardened encrypted device company called ANOM, putting a new, secure communications product on the market. The informant in turn introduced the device to his network of trusted distributors, allowing the use of the device to grow organically, according to an FBI affidavit.  The ANOM app quickly took off in the criminal underworld. So confident were ANOM's distributors and administrators in the secrecy of the devices that "they openly marketed them to other potential users as designed by criminals for criminals," Andy Grossman, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, said at a press conference Tuesday in San Diego, announcing charges against 17 foreign nationals accused of administering and distributing the app.