Cops infiltrate ‘Ghost’ encryption app used by drug lords, mafia

BRUSSELS — In the war between law enforcement and encrypted messaging apps, cops won one battle on Wednesday.

Police agencies across the world announced they had infiltrated an encrypted chat platform called Ghost, tapping into reams of private communications of criminal networks and leading to the arrest of 51 suspects so far.

Criminals involved in drug trafficking and money laundering coordinated activities on the platform daily, said officials at a press conference at the headquarters of the European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol, in The Hague. The platform is known for its advanced security features, which include layers of encryption and the fact that users can purchase it without disclosing personal details.

Authorities in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States worked with Europol and Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, to map the platform’s global infrastructure.

They found servers in France and Iceland and located the owners of Ghost in Australia, where authorities arrested a 32-year-old administrator, The Associated Press reported.

“No matter how advanced the technology, no matter how secure they think their communications are, we will find them and we will shut down their criminal activities,” Europol Executive Director Catherine De Bolle said.

Authorities also busted members of the Italian mafia, motorcycle gangs and organized crime groups in arrests spanning from Canada to Sweden, Ireland and Italy, officials said.

This is the latest high-profile encrypted communication bust to be carried out by a team of international law enforcement in recent years.

In 2020, France and the Netherlands led the investigation into EncroChat, a “cryptophone” company selling encrypted communication services and devices that were used by criminal networks, many of which were involved in drug trafficking and organized crime.

Authorities penetrated EncroChat to get access to “more than 100 million encrypted messages by criminals” and monitored the chats of “thousands of criminals” in real time, leading to more than 120 people charged with drug and arms trafficking, extortion, acts of torture and attempted murder in Belgium.

In March 2021, police in Belgium and the Netherlands raided more than 200 homes and arrested dozens of suspected criminals after cracking into Sky ECC, an encrypted chat app based in Canada and the U.S. that claims to offer “the world’s most secure messaging platform.”

And in June of that year, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed it created and ran an app called ANOM that got picked up by criminal gangs seeking new ways to communicate securely, leading to a whopping 500 arrests globally in a two-day takedown of criminal networks.