The 32-year-old Australian had created a blogging engine known as “Ghost”, a haunt of criminals around the world. In total, 51 arrests were made.
An Australian man suspected of creating an encrypted messaging service used by criminals around the world to manage drug trafficking, money laundering and assassinations has been arrested in a major international police operation. The app, a blogging engine known as “Ghost” and which its designer claimed was impossible to hack, has been used by hundreds of criminals in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, international law enforcement agencies announced Wednesday.
It was dismantled after several years of investigation by authorities from nine countries, with the support of Europol and Eurojust. “It was a real game of cat and mouse on a global scale, and today the game is over.”said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol’s Deputy Executive Director for Operations, at a press conference at the agency’s headquarters in The Hague.
51 arrests
For two years, law enforcement had been hacking into the network and watching users discuss drug trafficking, money laundering, murder and other serious violence. Fifty-one people have been arrested in Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Canada and Australia, including Jay Je Yoon Jung, the “brain” presumed from the application.
The 32-year-old Australian lived with his parents in Narwee, New South Wales, and had no criminal record. He showed up “slightly surprised” when police came to arrest him, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Ian McCartney said. He has been charged with five offences, the most serious of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Fifty assassination threats have been foiled in Australia. In one case, investigators intercepted an image of a person with a gun to his head who was rescued within an hour, according to Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Kristy Schofield. A drug lab has been dismantled in Australia, while weapons, drugs and more than €1 million in cash have been seized worldwide so far, according to Europol. Police have also seized 376 phones with access to Ghost.
Located by the gendarmes
Created nine years ago, Ghost only worked on specially modified smartphones that sold for around 2,350 Australian dollars (1,430 euros), a price that included six months of subscription to the service and technical support. The app, used by hundreds of suspected criminals for its convenience and anonymity, offered the ability to send a message followed by a specific code that caused all messages on the target phone to self-destruct, Eurojust said in a statement.
But the servers were located in France and Iceland, and the financial assets in the United States, Europol said. Investigators managed to access the encrypted content in 2022 by hacking into one of the updates offered by the app’s creator. For two years, they were able to track the platform’s growing popularity among criminals.
It was French gendarmes who finally spotted the creator of the application in Australia. The police had to act extremely quickly so that the suspect, who had the possibility of “delete everything” in the system, does not achieve its goals by seeing itself surrounded, said Kristy Schofield. “Our tactical teams were able to apprehend him and secure the computer equipment within 30 seconds of entering.”.
Ireland particularly affected
The Irish part of the operation was “particularly important” for the country that mattered “the second largest number of users” of the platform, said Garda Síochána Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly. “We have targeted four Irish organised crime groups involved in drug trafficking”he added, welcoming the dismantling of a “main drug trafficking route” to the country, and the seizure of drugs with a street value of almost 16 million euros. Mr Kelly assures that there will be “other arrests”.
The 2020 takedown of the global encrypted communications network EncroChat was “a turning point” in the fight against organized crime, according to investigators. Since then, “The encrypted communications landscape has become extremely dynamic and segmented, posing ongoing challenges for law enforcement”stressed Bertrand Michel, deputy head of the French national gendarmerie.
In 2021, the dismantling of a similar network, ANOM, led to the arrest of hundreds of suspects around the world. These people were far from suspecting that ANOM was in fact produced and distributed by the FBI, the American federal police, and its Australian counterpart. This raid also comes a few weeks after the arrest near Paris of the founder and boss of the Telegram messaging service Pavel Durov for publishing illegal content on the application.
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