SAN DIEGO â The full extent of an unprecedented FBI effort to beat the criminal underworld at its own encrypted-communications game became clearer Tuesday following a two-day takedown, with some 800 arrests worldwide and San Diego racketeering indictments against 17 high-level targets, according to federal authorities.
Dubbed Operation Trojan Shield, the effort was largely led by FBI agents and federal prosecutors in San Diego who covertly created a closed-loop encryption cellphone service, called ANOM, and then convinced trusted voices already embedded in criminal syndicates to distribute the customized phones.
The agents secretly read each message that poured in â 27 million in all. They read about shipments of cocaine stamped with Batman logos, cocaine hidden in tuna cans headed to Belgium, cocaine sent in French diplomatic pouches and cocaine in refrigerated fish destined for Spain, according to a search warrant unsealed this week.
The Biden administration is forming working groups with Canada, Mexico, the EU and the U.K. to examine how to reopen international travel as the coronavirus pandemic eases, a White House