Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by msmash on from the clampdown dept.

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.

7 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Why is this illegal? by nimbius · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:Why is this illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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!"

    2. Re:Why is this illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Why is this illegal? by schnell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
  2. That CEO is a [reckless] moron by bogaboga · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."

    1. Re:That CEO is a [reckless] moron by Freischutz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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, ...

  3. Re:Duterte by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.