In a sting operation to trap criminals worldwide, FBI has weaved a web with name ANOM. The operation was named Trojan Shield.
The operation took off two years ago and resulted in over 800 criminals arrest globally. This was possible because of the encrypted phones planted by the FBI secretly. Over 16 countries cops were able to read the messages related to drug deals, transfer of arms, gangland hits.
Operation Trojan Shield monitored through the spiked phones that trapped Mafia groups, Asian crime syndicates, motorcycle gangs and other criminal networks.
Australia and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) jointly conceived the sting which prevented around 150 murders, foiled several large-scale narcotics shipments and led to seizures of 250 weapons and $48 million in currency.
On Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that
the operation had struck a heavy blow against organised crime — not just in this country, but one that will echo around organised crime around the world.
FBI placed thousands of the ANOM devices into the hands of over 300 criminal syndicates in over 100 countries, who believed their messages could never be seen by law enforcement.
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According to the FBI, the heaviest use of the ANOM phones was in Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Australia and Serbia.
Here is the list of criminals trapped by ANOM :
- Australia charged more than 200 people.
- Sweden arrested 155 people, including 5 in Spain.
- Finland announced around 100 arrests.
- Germany detained 70 suspects.
- Netherlands detained 49 suspects.
- New Zealand detained 35 suspects.
The operation was revealed in March 2021 when a blogger detailed ANOM security flaws. He further claimed that the it was a scam linked to some of the countries like Australia, the US and other members of the 5 Eyes intelligence sharing network. However, the post was later deleted.
ANOM’s website was unavailable on Tuesday when checked. When checked for the website “domain has been seized.” was the message on display.