FBI built fake phone company in global wiretapping operation of historic proportions
June 8, 2021 3 Comments
THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation built a fake telephone service provider for a secret worldwide operation that officials described on Monday as “a watershed moment” in law enforcement history. The operation, known as TROJAN SHIELD, began in 2018 and involved over 9,000 law enforcement officers in 18 countries around the world. When the existence of TROJAN SHIELD was announced in a series of official news conferences yesterday, officials said the operation had “given law enforcement a window into a level of criminality [that has never been] seen before on this scale”.
The operation centered on the creation of an entirely fake telephone service provider, known as ANØM. The fake firm advertised cell phones that were specially engineered to provide peer-to-peer encryption, thus supposedly making it impossible for government authorities to decipher intercepted messages or telephone calls between users. The FBI and law enforcement agencies in Australia and New Zealand used undercover officers to spread news about ANØM in the criminal underworld. The fake company’s modus operandi was to let in new users only after they had been vetted by existing users of the service. Within two years, there were nearly 10,000 users of ANØM around the world, with Australia having the largest number —approximately 1,500.
On Tuesday morning hundreds of raids were conducted in over a dozen countries, beginning with New Zealand and Australia, where over 500 raids were carried out, resulting in the arrests of 224 people. News reports suggest that over $45 million in cash has been seized in the past 24 hours in Australia alone, where law enforcement authorities dubbed the operation IRONSIDE. More raids have been taking place around the world, including in the United States. However, as raids were continuing into the evening, the FBI said it would not discuss the results of Operation TROJAN SHIELD until later today, Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the undercover operation as “a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history”, which would “echo around the world”. An early report on the operation, which was published by the San Diego Union Tribune in the United States, said the purpose of TROJAN SHIELD was two-fold: to dismantle organized criminal syndicates through evidence acquired from wiretaps, and to spread confusion and mistrust of encryption devices in the worldwide criminal underworld.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 June 2021 | Permalink
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Police in Italy have announced the seizure of the largest shipment of amphetamines in counter-narcotics history, containing drugs believed to have been manufactured by the Islamic State in Syria. The drugs shipment was intercepted at the port of Salerno, located south of Naples in southwestern Italy.
Drug cartels are organizing sophisticated ‘care package’ drives throughout Mexico in an attempt to build political capital and solidify their community support. Nearly every drug cartel in Mexico is organizing its own handout distribution 
A convoy of trucks carrying nuclear fuel to one of Brazil’s nuclear plants was attacked by a heavily armed gang on Tuesday, according to police reports. The convoy was carrying uranium fuel from Resende, an industrial city in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. Its destination was the Angra Nuclear Power Plant in the coastal city of Angra dos Reis, which is located 100 miles south of Resende. Angra is Brazil’s sole nuclear power plant. It consists of two pressurized water reactors, Angra I and Angra II. It is owned by Eletrobras, Brazil’s state-owned power utility firm, which is also the world’s tenth largest electric utilities company.
Police in Switzerland cautioned that allowing the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich to live there would threaten public security and damage the country’s reputation, according to files released this week. The Soviet-born Abramovich took advantage of Russia’s privatization laws in the early 1990s to gain considerable financial and political influence there. His friendship with Russia’s first post-Soviet President, Boris Yeltsin, was instrumental in his business career, and eventually placed him in close proximity to Russia’s current President, Vladimir Putin. Unlike many other oligarchs, Abramovich is believed to have remained close to Putin, despite living mostly in the United Kingdom in the past decade. The Russian oligarch has been staying in a mansion valued at close to $120 million in London’s exclusive suburb of Kensington. His lawyers have been renewing his British residence visa every six months.
Organized criminal groups in southern Italy may be supplying assault weapons to groups and individuals that are associated with the Islamic State, according to European investigators. British newspaper The Guardian said last week that security officials in Italy, Britain, and elsewhere in Europe have traced weapons used by Islamists to at least one arms cache that entered the European black market through a Sicilian crime family with links to the mafia.
As many as 100 Malaysian immigration officers are implicated in a widening investigation involving the deliberate sabotage of the country’s electronic passport control system. The investigation, which began over three months ago, focuses on a criminal ring of immigration personnel at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), one of Southeast Asia’s major travel hubs. 
A leading dissident republican group in Ireland has claimed responsibility for a bloody attack in Dublin, which was carried out last week by a group of masked assailants disguised as police and carrying AK-47 assault rifles. Police said that the carefully planned attack involved at least six people wearing SWAT-style police uniforms, at least one of whom was disguised as a woman. The assailants 
Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina have announced the arrest of several people on suspicion of having direct links with the Islamic State and other militant groups fighting in Iraq and Syria. At least 11 people were arrested by police in simultaneous raids at a number of locations on Tuesday, including businesses and private homes, across the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. A police spokeswoman said the eleven men had been charged with having links to terrorist groups, financing terrorist groups, or inciting and helping organize criminal acts. A number of them were also charged with recruiting young men and women to join militant groups in Syria and Iraq, she said.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting authorities in some of Europe’s poorest states in their efforts to stop criminals with Russian connections from selling radioactive material to foreign terrorist organizations. The Associated Press 
A 28-year-old criminal investigator of the Dutch National Crime Squad was arrested by Dutch police on September 29 over allegations of corruption, neglect of duty, and money laundering. The man, named as Mark M., applied for a job at the Dutch police in 2009. According to an online résumé, M. dropped out of professional college in journalism after several years of being self-employed as a freelance reporter covering crime issues.
A Russian businessman, who died in London while assisting a Swiss probe into a massive money-laundering scheme, may have been poisoned with a substance derived from a highly toxic plant, an inquest has heard. Aleksandr Perepilichny was an influential Moscow investment banker until he fled Russia in 2009, saying that his life had been threatened after a disagreement with his business partners. A few months later, having moved to an exclusive district in Surrey, south of London, Perepilichny began cooperating with Swiss authorities who were investigating a multi-million dollar money-laundering scheme involving senior Russian government officials. The scheme, uncovered by a hedge fund firm called Hermitage Capital Management (CMP), and described by some as the biggest tax fraud in Russian history, defrauded the Russian Treasury of at least $240 million. The case made international 
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Female suspect in Monaco bombing that targeted sanctioned oligarch found dead
July 8, 2026 by Joseph Fitsanakis 3 Comments
Authorities in Monaco believe that Anastasiia Berezovska, 39, a Ukrainian national, planted a parcel bomb that seriously injured multi-millionaire Vadym Yermolaiev on June 29. Yermolaiev’s mistress and their 13-year-old son were also injured, according to reports. In 2019, Yermolaiev renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and became a citizen of Cyprus. In 2022, when Russia launched the latest phase of its invasion of Ukraine, Yermolaiev moved his family to Monaco.
In 2023 the Ukrainian government imposed financial sanctions on Yermolaiev, claiming that he collaborated with the authorities in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. But Yermolaiev refuted these allegations, claiming that he regarded Russia as an “enemy” and that he had provided financial donations to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He also claimed that he had renounced his Ukrainian citizenship because the Ukrainian tax system was unfair and he wanted to receive “international protection”.
On Tuesday the BBC reported that it contacted the office of Monaco’s prosecutor, who said that Berezovska had “spent days casing out” Yermolaiev’s residence and that she had disguised herself as a man when she planted the parcel bomb in the entranceway of Yermolaiev’s Monaco apartment. Shortly after the bomb exploded, at 9:00 p.m. local time, Berezovska used a rented car to drive across the border to Italy and then to Germany.
By that time, Interpol had issued a Red Notice alert for Berezovska, which prompted German special forces personnel to raid an apartment the suspect had rented in Germany’s central state of Hesse. However, Berezovska was not found there. It now appears that she had entered Ukraine on July 1, where she made contact with her family and two men, according to Ukrainian authorities. According to the prosecutor general’s office, Berezovska “traveled a certain distance with [the two men], after which she was killed”.
Citing the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and “a current officer” in Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU), the BBC reports that Berezovska’s body was found buried in a forest in Kyiv. Her body displayed two bullet wounds to the head. A law enforcement officer and a DIU officer have been charged with murdering Berezovska, according to the BBC. Previously, the men are believed to have transferred funds to Berezovska’s bank and cryptocurrency accounts.
In a statement cited by the BBC, the SBU said that a house belonging to one of the two suspects contained a basement room that “resembled a torture chamber”. The two men have been charged with “intentional murder committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons”. Ukrainian law enforcement officials stated on Tuesday that they are working on identifying more suspects in the case.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 July 2026 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Anastasiia Berezovska, assassinations, Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, Monaco, News, organized crime, Security Service of Ukraine, Ukraine, Vadym Yermolaiev