Feds Bust CEO Allegedly Selling Custom BlackBerry Phones To Sinaloa Drug Cartel (vice.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard report: For years, a slew of shadowy companies have sold so-called encrypted phones, custom BlackBerry or Android devices that sometimes have the camera and microphone removed and only send secure messages through private networks. Several of those firms allegedly cater primarily for criminal organizations.Now, the FBI has arrested the owner of one of the most established companies, Phantom Secure, as part of a complex law enforcement operation, according to court records and sources familiar with the matter. "FBI are flexing their muscle," one source familiar with the secure phone industry, and who gave Motherboard specific and accurate details about the operation before it was public knowledge, said. Motherboard granted the sources in this story anonymity to talk about sensitive developments in the secure phone trade. The source said the Phantom operation was carried out in partnership with Canadian and Australian authorities.

Comments

Why is this illegal?

[nimbius]

Cartel members buy toilet paper, tacos, beer and car window tint too. Selling things to a criminal is not, itself, a crime. Just because encryption can be used in concert with a criminal act does not make encryption a criminal act. The important part of this article is where the FBI seeks to use Phantom as a whipping boy for its "safe" and "good" crypto agenda.

Phantom then installs Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software to send encrypted messages, and routes these messages through overseas servers, the complaint alleges.

If you want to stop drug trafficking and end cartels, you can stop trying to outlaw trapdoor math functions and start overhauling the century old criminal code that made a drug safer than aspirin a capital offense.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh OK. So because they actually designed for illicit use then the encryption and lack of camera and mic is illegal.

What they SHOULD have done was market the phones for use for clergy. "Officer, these phones were designed to take remote confessionals. Now fuck off and may the Lord be with you!"

Re:Why is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want to stop drug trafficking and end cartels, they just want to stop drug trafficking and cartels that they do not control and profit from.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not as simple as our phone is super secure, they went as far as outright telling people they designed it for illicit use.

Which is why FBI, CIA, and NSA members should never travel abroad. Tor was designed specifically for the illicit use of supporting dissidents and facilitating their own anonymous clandestine activities at home and abroad. Too bad Germany doesn't try pushing for the extradition of the NSA chief for their spying on Germany's Chancellor. Of course, no doubt the US would have reason to extraditing in kind for Germany's head of BND. *shrug*

Seriously, though, yea, you shouldn't explicitly facilitate explicit use. Shame the FBI can't track down drug dealers, though. As in, it's oddly the case they know of these Cartels, what they do, and the names/faces of their leaders but can't seem to actually arrest anyone significant. Going after these phones isn't likely to substantial shift them away to insecure communication channels because all the tools are there and "super secure" phones that don't cater to cartels exist. It'd seem wiser to acknowledge the reality and adapt. Easier said than done, of course.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[azcoyote]

Exactly. I agree with bogaboga. Some common-sense moral evaluation can tell us that this is immoral, and from there we can infer that if it isn't illegal, it probably should be.

It's immoral for at least the following reasons:

• The seller has full knowledge of what the item will be used for.
• The seller markets the object with the direct and clear intention that it should be used for the commission of crimes.
• The seller should be aware that such crimes involve immoral actions, including harm of persons and even murder. ("should" because even if the seller does not directly know, this is what is called "vincible ignorance"--an ignorance that he easily could rectify and which is therefore his own fault.)

Cartel members buy toilet paper, tacos, beer and car window tint too.

If a person sells toilet paper to a criminal to wipe his behind, that is not immoral. In fact, providing a basic necessity like medical aid to a criminal could even be a morally good act if done for the sake of the person's human dignity and not for the sake of continuing their crimes. If you happen to see someone marketing toilet paper to a criminal so that he can murder someone with it, then you can go ahead and call the police on him.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[schnell]

Cartel members buy toilet paper, tacos, beer and car window tint too. Selling things to a criminal is not, itself, a crime.

I'd suggest reading TFA, which is actually both less sensational and more damning than the cheap clickbait Slashdot version.

The short version is that they arrested the CEO of a company which proactively markets its services to criminal organizations. The company performs perfectly legal activities: they mod phones to remove camera, GPS, web browsing, etc.; add secure messaging software; and then operate a remote Enterprise Mobility Management server that the phones are connected to so they can manage remote wipe/lock/whatever. That second half is the problem: it's not a "fire and forget" operation of just selling a modded phone. It's doing the EMM bit of acting as the IT department of criminal organizations ("call us to wipe your phone if your dude gets arrested") knowingly and willingly, to the extent of the CEO saying "we made this for drug traffickers."

Long story short: you're right, selling legal stuff to criminals that they use for illegal activity: not a crime. But marketing your services specifically to be used in illegal activities: yes, a crime.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[fafalone]

Well I don't know about this case specifically yet, but prosecutions like this tend to revolve around specific knowledge of clients and intended purposes. It's not illegal to sell a secure phone, but when a guy comes in and says 'I represent x cartel will these phones help me evade law enforcement and can you customize them further to help me with that', you're on the hook if you don't refuse the sale.
And you know, you talk about I presume marijuana reform, but the real key critical component to reducing problematic drug addiction, ODs, gang violence, and wiping out the cartels is realizing that you have to also provide regulated legal access to drugs that are actually dangerous. It saddens me that all the progress made with pot has turned out to be based entirely on the fact it's extremely safe, rather than a broader recognition that if your policy objective is to minimize the harm of a dangerous but recreational and in demand substance, you must legalize, because prohibition at any level only increases the harm of an already harmful substance. Personal use quantities of even heroin and cocaine are decriminalized in Portgual for example, and while the rest of the world has seen the harm from these substances explode, it's declined there.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[Antique Geekmeister]

This is from the Us criminal code, USC 1807:

"To obtain a federal forfeiture, the Government must prove the forfeiture and the connection between the property and the crime by a preponderance of the evidence. Forfeiture may be applicable to property that is traceable as proceeds of the offense, that facilitated the offense, or that was involved in money laundering. All claims of interest or ownership in the property, such as property owned by third parties, are resolved in a single trial."

The principal that a vendor is responsible for abuse performed with their goods when it could be reasonably foreseen seems clear. The reasoning that a device has legitimate functions and that a vendor could not reasonably be held responsible criminally or civilly for selling it breaks down when the function of the device is primarily criminal. We see this in my workplace for network monitoring tools: is this tool designed for packet sniffing and doing man-in-the-middle auditing of private information? Do we have the authority to do that, or would we be violating various privacy laws by sniffing the traffic? Do we want to be vulnerable to demands that we turn that information over to local governments?

Re:Why is this illegal?

[b0s0z0ku]

Marijuana = safer than aspirin.

Large scale cultivation of marijuana carried the death penalty under US law, even without a proven death involved. Note that this provision has never been tested in court, and might be struck down if anyone is sentenced under it. US courts tend to frown on the death penalty for crime not involving murder.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[b0s0z0ku]

It's a plant -- you can eat it or cook with it.

Re:Why is this illegal?

[swb]

Medellin refers to a time when one group controlled every aspect of the drug trade, providing a measure of order that we could control. And until somebody finds a way to convince 20% of the population to stop snorting and smoking that shit, order's the best we can hope for. And what you saw up there, was Alejandro working toward returning that order.

Matt the CIA agent from Sicrario.

That CEO is a [reckless] moron

[bogaboga]

How else would I call a fella who says the following to anyone?

“We made it—we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking] too,”

As he reportedly told undercover agents...

One conclusion: "Moron."

Re:That CEO is a [reckless] moron

[Freischutz]

How else would I call a fella who says the following to anyone?

“We made it—we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking] too,”

As he reportedly told undercover agents...

One conclusion: "Moron."

He may be an idiot but looking at this from a SIGINT point of view I have to ask myself: Why the hell did they arrest the guy? If they had a lick of sense they'd have flipped him, spiked the phones with some innovative spyware and then done the same to every single supplier of custom phones to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, and Los Zetas, and Los Templarios, ... etc. They could not only be listening in on their comms, they could be tracking thousands of these bozos in real time mapping their smuggling routes, safe houses, factories, labs, ...

Re:Duterte

[b0s0z0ku]

The Coca farmers are often poor peasants -- are you advocating napalming families who are just getting by?

As far as Mussolini, he ended up strung up upside down, hanging from a gas station sign like a trussed turkey. "Hanged and quartered" by his own people. Hope that happens to many world leaders in the near future. Murderers like "Duterte Harry", and "Wannabe Stalin" Lukashenko would be good starts.

In short, you Russian troll, feck off, get MRSA of the scrotum from a FSB-run hooker.

You're missing the point of the American Drug war

[rsilvergun]

It's a combination of back door racism and the American right wing attacking their political enemies. No, really, it is.

The sad thing is that the proof and the history are out in the open an nobody seems to care. A few college kids might but they grow out of it.

Re:Another win for the War on Drugs ..

[gtall]

The banks are watched. There was a reporter who investigated the Zetas and their connections in the U.S. Their biggest problem is laundering their money. If the banks were bought off, they wouldn't have that problem.

It turns out a good place for them to launder funds is the horse industry. Much of it is done though untraceable cash and personal communications. Rich idiots like to own horses that compete in races, but they do not want to let their fellow rich idiots know what horses they are going to use to enter races, so they buy and sell through intermediaries.

Too bad Sessions and his merry band of illegal alien children chasers don't want to go after the horse people, rich people can fight back. Illegal alien children can't, so naturally he goes after them. I rather miss him in his Senate hearings where he'd always salt any panel of "experts" with dingbats who believed what he does.

Re:Duterte

[angel'o'sphere]

A kid in america can deccide if it uses heroine or cocaine.
A peasent in south america can not decide not to take a farm job, first they may kill him for not tskkng the job and secondly his kids will starvve if he does not take the job.

No idea why your mind is so fucked up that you don't know how retarded your drug policy is (and how retarded your south america 'monroe doctrine' was. Letting the CIA destroy every legaly elected government and leaving the land for the war lords and drug barons, now you ccomplain they sell drugs to your kids. Learned something? No ...)