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- [00:00]
Podcast Host (404 Media)
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Joseph Cox
Hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404 Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. And they get early access to our interview series too. Like this episode. Gain access to that content at 404 MediaCo. So today I'm speaking with Mike Bobbitt who was stationed in the Hague during the ANOM operation. This was the largest sting operation ever. It is when the FBI secretly ran an encrypted phone company in order to wiretap the world, capture the communications of organized criminals. They basically ran a tech company for drug traffickers and Hitmet. So there's a fair bit of context that you need before you go into this interview. Some of you may know this because you may have read my book Dark Wire, that's all about this operation and Mike comes up in that book repeatedly. Or maybe you'll new to this world, but to step back for a minute. For years criminals have used encrypted phones like it used to be pagers, right? Then burner phones or a payphone if you watch the wire or something like that. That's just not how it works really. Now that we're well into the 21st century. Drug traffickers, hitmen, money launderers, they use these devices which send. Well, at first it was end to end encrypted emails, then it became instant messages. And now actually a lot of them are based on the signal protocol. Often they'll have the camera removed, the microphone as well, the GPS functionality. And the idea is that this is a device I can securely communicate with my fellow drug traffickers to organize my shipments or my assassination attempts or whatever and reduce the attack surface. So if law enforcement do try to hack into it or do try to intercept my communications, there's much less material for them to get. So going back, I think in around 2008, there is a company called Phantom Secure, it is selling these sorts of devices on BlackBerry handsets. The FBI starts investigating that company, it eventually shuts down Phantom Secure and there's a vacuum after that, right? Because these drug traffickers, there were thousands of them on Phantom Secure, they need to quickly find another provider. Now some of them probably went to sky, which was this massively popular encryptophone company as well. But another player emerged. So in the wake of The Phantom Secure Shutdown. Somebody who sold phones for Phantom and for sky actually came to the FBI with this really extraordinary offer saying, hey, I'm making the next generation of encrypted phone and I want to offer it to the FBI for you to use your investigations. And of course there was money involved, a promise to drop or a lower sentence of charges this person may or may not be facing now or in the future. There was a transaction there obviously, but this company was called Anom. So the FBI took it rather than trying to place a backdoor into an existing phone company because they did try to do that Phantom Secure. They were just going to run the tech company themselves, you know, actually fund it, help it grow as much as they could. They didn't want to do entrapment, they didn't want to sell the phones to specific people, but they wanted it to spread organically. So they put in a back door that collects all of the messages sent across the nom and the videos and the photos and the GPS location as well. And things get going. A NOM starts in Australia. It's very small, very much word of mouth, you know, single digit devices to start and then dozens. And then it becomes more and more popular until eventually, you know, the Italian mafia are using it inside Australia, biker gangs like the Comancheros are using it, these really hyper violent gangs, Hell's Angels as well. So it starts there and then eventually, because of the globalised nature of organised crime, the criminals using these phones, well they need to get them over to Europe now where their collaborators and their co conspirators are. These people need to be able to communicate. You can only message someone on an arm if you're also on anom. There's no cross pollination between these phone networks. So anom, with the FBI's back door starts to move to Europe. And that's where Mike, the person I'm speaking to in this interview, comes in. In his role, he was relaying intelligence between San Diego FBI with that field office leading the ANOM operation and Dutch authorities. Then his role does get a lot more involved, as you'll hear. And he sort of walks us through the ANOM operation from the time when ANOM lands in Europe. If you do want the rest of the story, of course, check out my book Dark Wire and there's plenty of coverage on 404 Media Co as well. I'll put some links below, but other than that, here's the interview and I hope you enjoy. Thank you so much for joining us. And you're Going to tell us all about anom. I really, really appreciate it.
- [06:07]
Mike Bobbitt
You're welcome. It's good to see you again, Joseph.
- [06:10]
Joseph Cox
Absolutely. So listeners have just heard me explain the beginning of anom. The FBI launching its own encrypted phone company, or rather taking one over and then growing it through various means. How it started in Australia, the. Then eventually our lands in Europe. And that's where you come into the story. And we will get to that. But to back up a little bit, can you tell us how you got into the FBI and the sort of work you were doing for the Bureau before Operation Trojan Shield? Like, what were you doing in the FBI before that?
- [06:46]
Mike Bobbitt
Sure. Well, my story is it starts when I'm in university and I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I had always been drawn to serve my country, but the military was not something I'd considered, even though my father had been in the Army. And between that and the fact that I became bored very easily and I knew I needed something with a lot of variety. So the idea of being a special agent with the FBI was introduced to me and I began to pursue it. And that led to a change in my field of study to become a cpa. I worked for Deloitte for just three years. And then I was fortunate enough that the FBI started hiring again during that period and I was able to join. That was in 1998.
- [07:42]
Joseph Cox
Sure. So what sort of places and investigations are you doing at the start? Like, what do they give to a new agent in 1998?
- [07:56]
Mike Bobbitt
It's funny you asked that. At the time. It was still. The war on drugs was still really moving. So a lot of agents from my new agents class were going to the southern border. And so I went to Houston. And it was really a fantastic time. And I was fortunate to join the squad. DS6 was the name of the squad. And we were to say we were young squad was an understatement statement. We had one journeyman investigator. He, I think only had five years in the FBI. Everybody else had three years or less. We were squad of 12. I think there were three or four other probationary agents like myself. My training agent had just gotten off probation months before. And I really had no context for what we were doing. We were. We were addressing some of the most prolific Colombian cartels and Mexican cartels. I really had no appreciation. I didn't know what the Gulf Cartel was and was fortunate to join two other case agents that were working the Gulf Cartel and ended up dismantling the Gulf Cartel. And then had the opportunity to work on some Colombian terrorist organizations myself, following on from some really talented investigators that had started a case previously as a young agent. Really no appreciation for what I was dropped into. Had the opportunity to go overseas. Worked in Budapest, Hungary, working Russian organized crime for quite a while, then moved to Thailand after six years. Spent two years in Thailand, then found my way to Denver and worked cyber intrusions, corruption, gangs, hate crimes, and a variety of other violations. And then at the very end, my family and I, we decided it might be nice to try to go overseas again. I had about 18 years in the FBI at that point and found ourselves fortunate once again. And we're in the Netherlands working with the Dutch national police and Europol.
- [10:06]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, that makes sense. How exactly do you end up at the Hague? Does just like the role come up and you can apply for it or it's offered to you? How does that work exactly?
- [10:20]
Mike Bobbitt
Good question. The FBI has a large presence overseas. We have representatives in every country or representing the FBI in every country for all criminal violations, national security matters, counterterrorism matters. But the numbers tend to be fairly low. So it's a very competitive position to obtain. It is. And so I really count myself fortunate to have the opportunity to go overseas again to the Netherlands and find myself in the Hagen. So this was a position I applied for and then was given. It was a specific position sponsored by the Criminal Investigative division of the FBI and for the specific person purpose of working organized crime. That would be dark web matters, encrypted communications, some of your traditional polar guards, these in law, things like that.
- [11:17]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, and of course, encrypted communications becomes very, very relevant a short while later. And I mean, we'll get to that. Just before that you become a legal attache. Right? That's what the title of this role is. Can you describe what exactly the point of that position is like? As you say, the FBI is all over the world. It has outposts and offices globally. What is the purpose and the role of a legal attache?
- [11:48]
Mike Bobbitt
Sure, that's a good question. So the legal attache, who actually would have been my boss, I was an assistant to the legal attache. The legal attache is the FBI director's representative to that country. So they represent the entire FBI. They're the voice of the FBI to manage all the FBI's work with that country. So working very closely with the domestic security services, foreign intelligence services, and obviously law enforcement in that country.
- [12:23]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. So you become, you enter that role and you're in the Netherlands and how long are you doing work there before A nom comes up. Is it like a couple of years, something like that?
- [12:37]
Mike Bobbitt
It's a couple weeks, actually.
- [12:39]
Joseph Cox
Oh, wow.
- [12:39]
Mike Bobbitt
But I didn't know. I didn't know it was a nom. So in my handoff with my predecessor, he's taking me to meetings and he says, you need to come meet this unit of the Dutch National Police. We've been passing them some intelligence from FBI San Diego. It's a fairly sensitive operation related to organized crime, and that process should continue. And so it was just in the first couple weeks, with no context, no idea where the information is coming from, just that the FBI is passing intelligence to the specific unit, the Dutch National Police.
- [13:17]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. So they haven't told you yet that there's this phone company called ANOM and the FBI is secretly running it? When do they tell you that? And sort of. What was your reaction to learning that this wasn't just an ordinary operation? This was, oh, the FBI is running a tech company, basically.
- [13:38]
Mike Bobbitt
It was actually quite a bit later. You may or may not know, but the FBI takes information security pretty seriously. So there are things, even though you have the highest level clearances, if you don't have a need to know, even within a specific investigation, you won't be privy to that information. So I knew FBI San Diego was collecting intelligence. I didn't know how. At first I suspected it was through a human source. As I passed more and more information to the Dutch and that information began to broaden, it became apparent to me that it was technical collection, but I didn't know anything more than that, and I didn't ask. So it wasn't until quite a bit later, a couple months later, where more and more was being passed. And it became clear to me that they were collecting from telephones. But I didn't know even then, I didn't know the nature of the telephones. I had never heard the name Anam. And then obviously, once we started to push into expanding with our Dutch partners and then push into Europol, that's when things became more clear.
- [14:53]
Joseph Cox
So you're getting this information, as you say at the start, it's like, maybe that's a human source. Then there's a lot of it. So it would be a very prolific human source to provide all of this information. That sort of theory goes out the window. But you and the Dutch authorities start acting on this information. Like the way we've spoken about it before is that you would get these phone calls from your colleagues at FBI San Diego, and they would relay some sort of piece of Information. Maybe there's a drug shipment going on. Maybe there's some sort of threat to life. I mean, in some cases, even a kidnapping. Right. Can you walk us through what you were doing there? You would get the phone call or receive the information some other way. What happened then when you got the information?
- [15:43]
Mike Bobbitt
Sure. So I moved from passing information just on one particular cell, one particular. I'm sorry, we have a name for.
- [15:53]
Joseph Cox
Them and it's just Syndicate.
- [15:55]
Mike Bobbitt
Syndicate. Thank you so much, Joseph. I'm glad you remember the case better than I do. I was only passing information on one particular syndicate when it became clear that there were additional syndicates that the Dutch needed this intelligence on. And they. They continued to go to that same unit. And so in this process, not only did I get access to Ola Ibot myself and started to search some of these syndicates that related to the Netherlands, but obviously FBI San Diego continued. They were calling me, as you say, and saying, by the way, there is a drug shipment coming in. Two days from now, it will arrive into the Netherlands. Can you please work with the Dutch and see if they can action it and do it in a way that will preserve the integrity of the collection platform. So this is when I was beginning to learn what ANOM really was, how it had been pushed out, the vastness of it. And so that was part of the work, is sort of making sure that drug shipments, enforcement action was occurring in a safe manner, in a secure manner to serve our Dutch colleagues as well as continue the integrity of the platform. Sometimes this became more challenging. As you say, there were threats to life. This was one of the primary responsibilities of the FBI to review all the information that was coming in and ensure that a NOM was not being used to facilitate somebody being killed. But those would come to me at all times, day or night. I would reach out to a specific point of contact within the Dutch. We would work out how this would unfold. He would contact the tactical units that would action this. We would agree on what information would be passed, what wouldn't be passed, what the nature of their tactical operation would include as not to, well, say, to keep our subjects off the path of where they may be getting compromised and help them to think, maybe, maybe somebody turned us in. Maybe there's a snitch someplace, perhaps there's a camera outside. I don't know what it is, but we don't want them to think that it's their encrypted communication platform.
- [18:20]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, there's a few different tensions there where even though you've Got the information and maybe at this point or later on, you personally know it's a nom. Maybe even the Dutch officials that you're communicating with know as well. But say the SWAT team on the ground or whatever, they're probably not going to know it's a nom because you don't want that information to leak out. That's one way it could potentially leak out is through lower ranking people, just potentially. The other tension is that if you move too aggressively and too quickly on a certain shipment or some sort of other activity going on, it could become very obvious that it's the phones that have been compromised. How, how did you deal with that tension of, well, let's not go too hard, but we still want to do our jobs as well. How did you deal with that?
- [19:22]
Mike Bobbitt
Well, first of all, the Dutch are incredible professionals in this field. They had a lot of experience with encrypted communications in the past. They have a lot of experience with handling large drug trafficking networks in the past. And then on top of it, I would say the unit that I was dealing with was perhaps the best of the best. I mean, they, they really were professional, not only in their capabilities, but in their collaboration. And so we had a level of understanding that once they came to understand and I sat down with the leader of that unit, I told him exactly what this was. The degree of partnership that we wanted, the access we wanted them to have through FBI San Diego and Ola Ibotta. They wanted the platform to stay strong for as long as possible as well. They could see the value in this. And so we just had a natural strong partnership there. And with that motivation to work together to find solutions. So you pull as many tools out of your toolbox as you can. When you send that tactical team out there, obviously they need to be safe. They need all the details that they could possibly have. But you provide instructions and you say, hey, lead them to believe that maybe there was a tracker on the car, make it look like you pulled a tracker off the car, and now they think that's where this is coming from. Or maybe plant the notion that somebody's brother or family member may have called the police and accidentally said something. So you use different techniques and they seem very simple, but you lay them, you layer them together so that you can plant doubt in their head. They already want to believe that this platform is not able to be compromised, and so they're already going that way. There were times where you would ask them to take additional steps so you might know the load is coming in, say, through a Dutch port, but it's headed to Poland or it's headed to Germany. And we would ask the Dutch, can you not take it off here because that's where the devices are. Can you work with the Germans and let it transit all the way into that particular town, that target town in Germany, and then take it off there? Because they'll never then connect that seizure back to the group that has the encrypted devices. And with these partnerships, it was just amazing. And these professionals are able to do that. Sometimes you can't. And I think you wrote about it in the book, Joseph, where you get a call, hey, there's a lab and it's sitting right next to a kid's daycare. And it's just do what you got to do. You make it as safe as you can, as quickly as you can. And you hope the platform can endure that. And. And obviously we did.
- [22:23]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. There are a few examples in this overarching story in the book where authorities just had to act. Basically. There wasn't really maybe the time or the space to, well, let's let this drug shipment go slightly and then other authorities can get it. As you say, if there's a lab above a daycare or whatever, authorities are going to want to act and you know, just to stress, like letting drugs walk. That's the phrase. Right. Obviously made famous by shows like the Wire and that sort of thing. I mean, I remember speaking to some of your colleagues in San Diego and they understood that's a controversial practice. Ordinarily. Now we're doing it on an international scale and it paid off in many respects. Right. Tons of drugs seized, all of that. But it's not a decision that should be taken lightly. I don't think people took it lightly either. Right. It's just like very complicated decisions going on that people have to deal with every single day. Can you briefly describe, I mean, I'm not expecting you to remember maybe the names of specific criminals or anything. I mean, I could maybe. I'll get into that later, but what sort of tier of criminal are we talking about that was using an arm? Are these like low level guys? Are they pretty high level? Like, what was your impression of the sorts of criminals that were using this app?
- [23:50]
Mike Bobbitt
That's a great question. And the answer to the question also highlighted. It really turned the light, I should say, on the vastness of the number of criminals in this category. We assumed. And when I say we, this was long before I was involved. The case agents in San Diego and all Their partners early on assumed based off of previous platforms that we would only have the highest level of criminal groups. Obviously there would be users that were using the encrypted devices that were mules, that were just transporting money and things like that. But because of the cost of the device, because as you know, you couldn't just run down to Best Buy and pick them up. You had to buy them from a criminal group. And those groups were at high levels. You only had the highest level of criminals utilizing these networks. And so we assumed there would be X number of groups that would use them. We have no idea just how many high level criminal groups were out there. And I think all our partner countries were shocked by that. And it just, it goes to show that they, they need communication devices desperately. They need means to, to, to plan and execute their, their drug trafficking, murder for hire, money laundering, corruption, everything that we found.
- [25:29]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, I think it was an official Europol I spoke to about it, who said you sort of understanding of the criminal, the organized criminal underworld and it was X number billion dollars or whatever. And then when a nom happened and then the related investigations into Encrochat and Sky as well, which were in a way all part of a single overarching campaign to undermine the encrypted phone industry for criminals. When those were done, this official said, well, they basically tripled our estimate of actually how big the criminal underworld was. So it's not even just revealing specific criminals, it's revealing, oh, this is the actual scale of what we're dealing with here. Do you agree with that? Is that kind of what you were seeing as well?
- [26:19]
Mike Bobbitt
Yeah, there's no question. I mean the math had to change because no one expected those numbers to show up. And the, and we weren't seeing one kilo, two kilo. We were seeing a thousand kilos, five thousand kilos, two thousand kilos. The, the numbers were amazing. The number of, of attempted murders were amazing. I mean you just, we didn't expect to see that level of, of criminality.
- [26:54]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. And Andrew Young, who was at one point the lead prosecutor on this case before he left the doj, he was also, you know, blown away by the public corruption, which you don't really ever see that because they're people in positions of power, in positions of authority who are abusing and exploiting that position. So they pretty rarely get caught. But anom, encrochat, that sort of thing, it revealed that capacity as well. So you're getting all these tips, you're acting on them eventually, as you say, The Dutch are actually given direct access to Holoraibot as well. But that can only go so far as well. Eventually Europol as a much larger organization becomes involved. Can you just walk us through how that comes about Europol's involvement and why, why bring them in? Why do this very complicated and very large sort of collaborative effort?
- [27:57]
Mike Bobbitt
As you may know, FBI San Diego's original plan was to bring all these partner countries from all the relationships that they intended to capitalize on from the different legal attaches around the world, these trusted partners, they wanted to bring them all to San Diego. And there was this little thing called Covid and it messed that up as well and really had a big impact. And so at the time we weren't able to bring those partners into the United States. It just wasn't going to be possible. And so FBI San Diego, they thought, well, maybe it's easier if most of our partners are European partners and they can, and we can travel within Europe. What if we take them to one central place? So we proposed as a group, different locations. And then they came to me and said, Mike, it just makes sense. Could we set up something, some sort of group at Europol where we could bring all the partners together? And I don't remember how many there were at the time, about half as many as we ended up. We ended with. And frankly it sounded like an awful lot of work to me and I was not interested. I also knew this would be difficult because Europol is a place where you go to share information. You do it in an open fashion. It is about bringing together as many people as possible and getting things actioned quickly. But what we needed in this case was a very surgical, close hold way to share very specific information among a very small group. And we needed to do it in a way where perhaps specific people from a partner country where they're receiving information, but even their Europol representative didn't know. They didn't even know why they were there. And so there were a lot of sensitivities on how we would build this. Well, fortunately I had some great, great partners at Europotal, some great partners with the Dutch and with the Swedes that kind of helped marshal this and put this together into an operational task force. And that's exactly what we decided to.
- [30:35]
Podcast Host (404 Media)
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- [32:18]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. And what does that or what did that look on a day to day basis when it starts? Because usually when I think of Europol and I've covered the agency and the organization in the past, it's sort of what you described. It's much more a clearinghouse for intelligence that was kind of already gathered maybe somewhat recently or maybe a little bit of a while ago. And you just need to get something to the German authorities or whoever. This was a live operation, which I think was pretty unusual for Europol. So you all come there, all the countries come here and you're in this building. It's Covid still. Right. As you alluded to. So it's quiet in some ways, but also busy in other ways. What did the organization inside the building look like on a day to day basis when all of these countries have come and they're going through the annom data?
- [33:16]
Mike Bobbitt
Yeah. And we would go through swings where everything would be open and Europol would be really busy and we would struggle to find initially to find a space. A2 was our floor and then suddenly everything closed. Europol closes and we're concerned they're going to close us down. But no, the leadership prevailed and it was clear we were going to persist. But that meant no food. You know, we were all eating out of the vending machines every day. It was quite, it was quite entertaining. Just all these little extra things that you hadn't thought would complicate what you needed to do. As people were coming and going, trying to get tested in and out.
- [34:07]
Podcast Host (404 Media)
Making.
- [34:07]
Mike Bobbitt
Sure that we, you know, we were properly spacing and things like that and following some of the regulations because we were also concerned. We realized Covid could sweep through our entire team and almost shut us down. We, we almost avoided that entirely. We had a couple, a couple little instances and, and were able to avoid the entire team getting infected. But what this looked like was all these countries, I think it was 17 in the end, 17 countries coming together in one long hall with offices on the sides where we had long tables. We would have meetings, we would come out. So you'd have pairs of countries in all these rooms doing their day to day work, access to Ola Ibot collaborating with their countries as I described before, how I would work with the Dutch and we would perhaps suggest let's get this load to transit through Germany. Well now as we're at Europol, one of my responsibilities in serving the case agents, I mean I couldn't do it all on my own obviously, but was to start this sort of operational collaboration with all the countries that were there and but became much easier because now we have relationships now. We didn't have to make phone calls, we were co located and we were able to work things out. So you had this amazing exchange of a representative from Sweden coming out and saying, hey, there's a load coming in, we want to take it to Germany, no problem. And then the polls would say fine, we'll help it transit through. And then you just had this, you had it happening in front of you, which I'm not sure I could give your readers and listeners a sense of how unique that is. But these are things that are worked out over weeks and months with high level officials and we're here on the floor of Europol and people are committing to these extremely sensitive operations, dangerous operations like this. And then it just happens and next thing we know we've had success and the load has been taken off exactly as we'd hoped and the platform is safe. So this was happening day after day after day as we would come together and share and, and plan and talk about what individuals priorities were, what priority targets were, and then make sure those things were getting addressed.
- [36:39]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, there were often these meetings where different countries would come and they would highlight, well, this is what we have. And then the FBI would discuss, well, maybe you shouldn't do that one, because that might be a bit too loud. I think this one's okay. Some countries do things by themselves, others stick more in that framework. But it's incredibly complicated when you have, as you say, more than a dozen countries all trying to do their own thing, but in a way to keep this very wild operation secure. But you're getting all of these messages by early 2021. I mean, Anom is really big. It had 12,000 devices over its life cycle, but like 9,000 was sort of the peak. Tens of millions of messages, A million messages a day at one point. All of which, sorry, not all of which. Many of which have images which have to be analysed because there's a gun or somebody's unfortunately beaten up body or something like that. Like really violent graphic stuff on there. So it's clear that this can't last forever. As much as some of the European partners might want it to, it can't simply. So the decision is made to shut down the operation for June 2021, just to round it off. Can you walk me through that day of when? Okay, this is it. We're shutting down ANOM now.
- [38:10]
Mike Bobbitt
Sure. In the, certainly in the days leading up to that, there was a lot to be done first we needed to sort of coordinate. We had the innovative idea. You might be familiar with how countries exchange information through mutual legal assistance treaties. This is a process whereby they submit a request, the Department of Justice reviews it. This can take months or a year to answer. And we knew that wouldn't be okay. We knew. And Joseph, forgive me if you don't want this level of detail, but.
- [38:47]
Joseph Cox
No, no, no, I actually think it's very, very relevant because MLATs weirdly come up a lot in my coverage. Especially because a lot of cybercrime stuff now is obviously governed by MLATs as well, but those take a long, long time. So you need to find another arrangement to act on this data a lot more quickly.
- [39:08]
Mike Bobbitt
That's right. But there is no other legal arrangement. That is the only avenue through which that country, which is part of OTF Green Light, can get this as evidence. And these countries, it was very clear that when, when we were approaching takedown, they would want to affect arrests and they would want to do search warrants so they would need evidence to support that. So the case agents and I discussed that we should build this in reverse. We should write, basically write the MLATs for those countries from DOJ's perspective so that DOJ, it would be pre approved and we just have to provide the sort of the jibs in there. And that way when they handed us that MLAT on takedown day, they would instantly have all the information that already received as intelligence as evidence and they would be able to act on it. So we were doing this. We were also building the media coordination. As you know, one of the impacts that FBI San Diego hoped to have was to really erode the faith and trust in encrypted communications. And so they wanted to have immediate impact so that people really could feel this, this degradation of trust in encrypted communications. And so that needed to be coordinated. We wanted all the countries to have sort of a uniform message that would roll out as the sun moved across the globe. So that had to be done. And then obviously it was prioritizing all the targets. Who's going to arrest this target? Who's going to arrest that target? Where are they going to be? Can you pick this guy up for us? Well, he'll, he'll actually be in another country. Can they arrange this?
- [41:01]
Joseph Cox
Yes.
- [41:02]
Mike Bobbitt
So it was everybody sort of horse trading who's going to arrest whom for whom and what searches and what evidence they needed within the group. And then obviously there was the stress surrounding. Would, would, would our infrastructure hold up long enough to reach takedown day when we have so many devices on the platform that it might just fall over? Would it be the same fear that we'd had all along, but now is bigger and bigger and there were more and more seizures and there was more and more discussion about perhaps Anom is compromised, perhaps we can't trust it. So would it finally, as some previous platforms had done, would it get out there that the FBI was behind this too early? So all these things were just reaching this crescendo, if you will, and might add, taking quite a toll on the case. Agents from San Diego, all the investigators in San Diego, the analysts, everybody that was involved was feeling that pressure.
- [42:06]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. And some criminal users of Anom did start to suspect the app. There's one major drug trafficker use Anom, Maximilian Rifkin. He used the nickname Microsoft. He never doubted it. He probably put way too much faith and trust into a nom. He was making a lot of money selling the devices, but people he was trafficking drugs with, all of their friends, their drug shipments, were being seized and it has to be the phone. So they were getting suspicious. Microsoft wasn't. And obviously that was actually part of his downfall where he said, hey, stop using Sky, Sky's compromise, which did turn out to be true. But he didn't realize the FBI was running anom. So you do this takedown day. Where are you the moment this stuff kicks off? Are you sat with the Dutch? Where are you? What happens?
- [43:02]
Mike Bobbitt
We knew that obviously the Australians and the Kiwis would kick off first and then it would move, move towards Europe. We knew the Dutch. We happened to be in the Hague and we knew the Dutch. We'd worked so closely with them and they were going to be targeting some of their, I think it was six or seven high priority targets. They had invited us to their operations center, which was a real treat to be able to go and sit there and watch it all unfold. And that was going to happen and we'd have time to get back to Europol. As the rest of Europe was really executing all their warrants and all the information was coming in, we knew there'd be last minute requests either for perhaps a country needed assistance locating a particular device, whatever that happened to be. So we laid this out and were able to get, get to the op center and get back. I did get a speeding ticket later as a result of.
- [44:07]
Joseph Cox
Wait, you did, you did get a speeding ticket?
- [44:10]
Mike Bobbitt
Yeah, they just, you know, they use cameras. So they just mailed it to me at the embassy and I had to pay it. I was like, oh, you're welcome.
- [44:18]
Joseph Cox
Right, yeah, the cost of doing business on a day like that.
- [44:23]
Mike Bobbitt
But that's what that looked like. So we were able to be at Europol as it unfolded and obviously there were like first iterations. All the priority targets were hit first. Inevitably you miss a few. They're not at the house you think they are, they're at their girlfriend's or their mom's. And so as countries were iterating on this and hitting the second hole, the third hole, the fourth hole, this is all coming together and you know that the platform is going to come down at midnight. And so everybody is, it's all hands on deck. In all these countries, I think there were 11 to 12,000 police officers around the world conducting arrest and search warrants in a coordinated fashion at one time. So it was quite amazing. And we just basically sat in our op center and continued to mingle with our partners and make sure everybody had what they needed. And then it just became quieter and quieter and quieter and quieter as everyone understood what was happening.
- [45:32]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, something like, well, as you say, thousands upon thousands of law enforcement officers, hundreds of arrests that day. Anom crossed over the line to a thousand arrests. Eventually tons of drugs seized, weapons as well. Threats to life mitigated. There's, of course, been a lot of the evidence working through the courts in Germany, Finland, other European countries, where some courts have said, no, you can't actually use this evidence. Others, and I think I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think the majority have said, yes, you can use it. Australia has ruled, yes, you can use it. As I go to in the book, they didn't do it in the U.S. first of all, because of the novel legal workaround with Lithuania and collecting the messages. But then also it would just be a legal headache to sort of do stuff in the United States. But this operation happens. And then months, even years later, there's more. There's exclusion, which was shut down by the Dutch. There was one called Matrix. There's even some other ones I can't remember now. So I guess just my last question is, what do you think? Sort of. Maybe it's too strong a word, but what do you think the fallout of a NOM is? As in law enforcement agencies are still doing this sort of thing. They might not be running the company like the FBI did, but they're hacking them or they're compromising them. What's the fallout from a nom, do you think? Sure.
- [47:09]
Mike Bobbitt
I mean, I have to have realistic measures and expectations for the criminal underworld until the demand for that which the criminals provide ends. There will be the criminal that provides it. And so they will always find a way. There's no question, you know, early on it was, it was pay phones, and then it was. It was cell phones, and then it was switching cell phones, you know, burners. And there will always be that balance between the logistical benefit of being able to communicate openly and freely and the hope for security and safety for their criminal operations. So that will always be the balance of the criminal organization. I do believe that ANAM and Operation Trojan Shield, the work that FBI San Diego did, had massive impact on this. And in context of the work the Dutch and the other countries have done on the previous and the encrypted communication platforms afterwards. You're right. I think the hacks will continue. There will always be the question is another government running another encrypted communication platform. I think it will. It'll continue to erode that trust and make them shift from. Away from safety towards some sort of logistical inconvenience. It'll slow them down a little bit. It will. It will have a negative impact on them. Will they find the new thing? I don't know what that will be. Smoke signals? I don't know. But yeah, they'll find something new. They'll always innovate and then hopefully you will see law enforcement, as the FBI did in this case. They will innovate as well and they will take that long view and they will put themselves in a position, as it said, you know, be where the hockey puck's gonna be before it gets there. And that's how we continue to have impact in this. I think chasing is always, is always a problem. So I think NAM had a huge impact and there will always be a next thing. And I'm hopeful that I won't be there, but hopefully the FBI will be.
- [49:31]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, well, I think that's a good place to leave it. Mike, thank you so much for joining us and running us through that. I really, really appreciate it.
- [49:39]
Mike Bobbitt
Yeah, it's been my pleasure.
- [49:44]
Joseph Cox
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