Editorial: Operation Trojan Shield better than fiction

Acting US Attorney Randy Grossman announces Operation Trojan Shield in San Diego, alongside a map of where crime bosses were using the FBI chat app. Photo / Denis Poroy, AP

EDITORIAL

One of the big questions to come out of the massive police raids on organised crime this week is: why didn't someone think of this before?

To recap, law enforcement Operation Trojan Shield infiltrated encrypted devices used by crime groups, led by the FBI and co-ordinated with the DEA, AFP, Europol and other law enforcement partners from more than a dozen countries, including New Zealand.

The scheme was reportedly initiated after an Australian Federal Police officer posed a thought over beers with mates in the FBI, "why don't we create our own messaging device and get criminals to use it while we watch?"

Edmund Blackadder would have called it a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Law enforcement officials walk past an Operation Trojan Shield logo at a news conference in San Diego. Photo / Denis Poroy, AP

After shutting down another encrypted platform in 2018, the FBI's chat app, Anom, was passed by undercover agents to fugitive Australian drug trafficker Hakan Ayik.

Ayik then recommended the app - promoted as "designed by criminals for criminals" - to others on the black market. For more than 18 months, Anom's criminal users unknowingly communicated on a system operated by FBI agents. In all, 12,000 encrypted devices were used by about 300 criminal syndicates in more than 100 countries.

After the Anom app spread around the criminal world, authorities gathered a massive tranche of evidence while preparing for the "sting of the century".

Fifty-seven of the devices were being used in New Zealand for "criminal needs", National Organised Crime Group director detective superintendent Greg Williams said.

One other question to come of this is: Who will play the Australian cop in the inevitable Hollywood movie?