They were billed as the most secure phones in the world, with a price tag of $2,000 and up for six months of service.
That's a tidy sum for most businesses who might consider using the BlackBerry devices that were stripped down and then souped up with very specific encryption.
Now the CEO of Phantom Secure is in jail, and the probable cause affidavit about his arrest makes you wonder if this company's only purpose was to facilitate crime.
Privacy used to hide tens of millions in crime
"Based on the evidence developed in this case, Phantom Secure is a Canadian-based company that sells electronic communication devices and encryption service to transnational criminal organizations to facilitate illegal activity and obstruct and impede law enforcement."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement by the FBI agent who wrote up the affidavit in this case.
In fact, CEO Vincent Ramos and Phantom Secure's officers and directors were "the leaders, members, and associates of a criminal organization" that helped move drugs.
In large part, this was possible because of encrypted communications over the Phantom Secure network, which routed encrypted messages through service located in places such as Hong Kong and Panama. The company believed these were safe havens where the governments would not cooperate with law enforcement.
Those servers, by the way, were also cloaked in multiple layers of virtual proxy networks.
How users of the network stayed anonymous
Like a scene from a mob movie, you could only get one of these phones, says the FBI, if another Phantom Secure user vouched for you.
When they did, you could set up an anonymous username; the company never asked users who they really were.
Here are some of the usernames discovered by the FBI and other law enforcement after they got a hold of some Phantom Secure devices and started using them, undetected.
- The.killa@freedomsecure.me
- Knee_capper9@lockedpgp.com
- narco@lockedpgp.com
- The.cartel@freedomsecure.me
- Trigger-happy@lockedpgp.com
Phantom Secure devices used around the world
According to the FBI affidavit, "There are more than 20,000 of the company's devices being used around the world, with about half of those operating in Australia."
And based on reports from the FBI, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Australian law enforcement, the agencies say the company has "generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue" by facilitating organized crime groups, and at this point, investigators have not identified any legitimate users of the service.
How Phantom Secure CEO got busted
CEO Ramos unknowingly met with undercover agents in Vegas, posing as high-level members of a drug distribution network.
When pressed by agents that it was unclear if they could really trust Ramos and his souped up BlackBerry devices, he was recorded as saying, "You don't know me, right? But yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, right? We made it, we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking....]"
You can read the affidavit for yourself, if you've got some more time.
The investigation was full of twists and turns and revelations that, in this case, encryption was indeed used to hide the work of criminal networks around the world.
This ongoing investigation might be one of the reasons the FBI keeps asking the security community for a "backdoor" through the encryption—just for them.
