Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews called Operation Ironside, made possible by an encrypted communications platform run by the FBI called AN0M, the "most significant operation in policing history here in Australia".
Thousands of police across multiple agencies executed about 500 search warrants, arrested 224 people, charged them with more than 525 offences and seized 104 guns, some $45 million in cash and tonnes of drugs.
But what was going on in Australia was only part of a much larger operation, codenamed Trojan Shield, that also involved authorities in the Americas, Europe and New Zealand.
Reuters: Australian Federal Police/Handout
)Overnight, law enforcement agencies in Europe and the US revealed that police across 16 countries had arrested more than 800 people thanks to AN0M.
They also seized more than 32 tonnes of drugs — cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines — along with 250 firearms, 55 luxury cars and more than $148 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.
"Operation Trojan Shield is a shining example of what can be accomplished when international law enforcement partners from around the world work together and develop state-of-the-art investigative tools to detect, disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organisations," Calvin Shivers, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, said at a news conference in The Hague.
Where did AN0M come from?
According to an affidavit filed by an agent to a US court and first published by Vice, the FBI obtained the encrypted communication platform AN0M in 2018 from a criminal informant.
The former drug trafficker was already established in criminal circles as a supplier of similar technology and was looking at getting time off his sentence.
The Australian Federal Police provided the technology and expertise to decrypt and store each message as they were transmitted and, in late 2018, the two agencies launched a "beta test" of the compromised communication platform in Australia.
Reuters: Australian Federal Police/Handout
)The app was installed on stripped-back mobile phones and its popularity grew organically in criminal circles after it was vouched by high-profile underworld figures, described as "criminal influencers".
Raids targeting users of another encrypted phone, Sky ECC, in March saw AN0M's popularity surge, with active users growing from 3,000 to 9,000 in months, the affidavit said.
Among the images shared in the affidavit were mounds of blocks of illicit drugs and a diplomatic pouch identified in the court document as French and allegedly used to transport cocaine from Colombia.
There was also evidence of corrupt government officials and police.
What happened in the US?
In a San Diego press conference on Tuesday, acting US Attorney Randy Grossman offered examples of the kind of deals and illegal operations the FBI foiled thanks to AN0M.
In February this year, one AN0M user in Armenia and one in Australia discussed the shipment of six kilograms of cocaine to Australia from California, followed by pictures of bricks of cocaine.
In another example from a few weeks ago, Mr Grossman said a transnational criminal organisation used AN0M to plan a shipment of cocaine from Costa Rica to Spain inside hollowed-out pineapples inside a shipping container.
Reuters: Mike Blake
)Police in Spain were then able to seize approximately 1,595 kilograms of the drug.
The FBI unsealed a federal grand jury indictment on Tuesday, charging 17 foreign nationals for their alleged involvement in marketing and selling thousands of AN0M devices specifically to transnational criminal organisations, which they knew would be used to coordinate drug trafficking and money laundering.
FBI agents and other countries' law enforcement agencies have arrested eight of the indicted defendants, while the rest are fugitives.
Europe was the 'hub'
In Europe, the operation was known as Greenlight and spearheaded by Sweden and the Netherlands.
Europol, the European Union's agency for law enforcement cooperation, set up an operational task force and acted as a "criminal intelligence hub, facilitating the exchange of information and coordinating with other investigations".
Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, deputy executive director of Europol, told a news conference more than 300 criminal syndicates operating in more than 100 countries used some 12,000 of the encrypted devices, with more than 27 million messages obtained and reviewed over 18 months.
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Sweden's head of police intelligence, Linda Staaf, said information collected by AN0M had led to 155 arrests there so far, including 70 this week, and another five in Spain.
Reuters: Mike Blake
)Dutch National Police chief constable Jannine van der Berg said her organisation had developed tools to analyse and interpret millions of messages that Europol distributed to other countries.
"On AN0M, criminals communicated in 45 languages, about things like trafficking in drugs, arms and explosive, ram raids, ATM attacks, armed robberies, and contract killings," she said.
The operation dealt "an unprecedented blow to criminal networks, and this is worldwide", she said.
She said AN0M had helped Dutch police arrested more than 49 suspects and dismantled 25 drug storage, production and tableting locations, seizing drugs, guns and money.
Finnish police said nearly 100 people had been detained and more than 500 kilograms of drugs confiscated, along with dozens of guns and cash worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In Germany, the general prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said more than 70 people were arrested on Monday and drugs, cash and weapons were also seized.
The Kiwi connection
New Zealand police got in on the action in January last year.
They already had an operation called 'Van' underway that started in 2018 targeting a transnational organised crime group linked to the Comancheros motorcycle gang, a police media brief said.
Using information gleaned from Operation Trojan Shield, they started two more operations codenamed Equinox, targeting senior members of Waikato Comancheros and Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom, and Seltos, centred on a group of Head Hunters members mainly in Auckland.
On Monday, more than 300 police executed 37 search warrants across Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Auckland, Central and Wellington Districts in a coordinated operation.
More than 900 charges have been laid against 35 people and seized $3.7 million worth of assets, 20 ounces of methamphetamine, large bags of cannabis, kilograms of iodine, four firearms, 14 vehicles including two marine vessels, mobile phones and cash.
AP: NZ police
)Senior members of the Waikato Comancheros, Waikato Mongrel Mob and Head Hunters were arrested and are considered to be among key leaders of organised crime groups in New Zealand
He said New Zealand was a small country and relied on the intelligence-gathering capabilities of its Five Eyes partners.
“We just can't speak highly enough of the FBI and the work they have done in the background here," Detective Superintendent Williams said.
ABC/wires
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2021-06-08 20:15:40Z
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