The Finnish police have made almost a hundred arrests as part of an extensive international fight against organized crime.
The so-called Trojan Shield / Greenlight operation, designed jointly by the FBI and Australian authorities, tricked criminals around the world into using an FBI-encrypted messaging application called ANOM.
In addition to the FBI, the covert operation was led by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Dutch and Swedish police. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation and 16 other countries, including Finland, were also present.
During the operation, the FBI was able to read millions of messages "real time" describing drug smuggling, money laundering and even murder. This information was then passed on to the relevant authorities in each country.
Inspector Kimmo Sainio According to the Central Criminal Police of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), in a press release, the agency has been able to initiate preliminary investigations in Finland on the basis of information received from the FBI. Sainio added that investigations are being conducted into organized criminal gangs and especially drug syndicates.
The story continues after the picture.
In Finland, the authorities have so far seized more than 500 kilos of drugs, dozens of weapons and hundreds of thousands of euros in cash. Nearly one hundred arrests in Finland were part of a globally coordinated operation on Monday.
As part of Monday’s operation, customs officers searched a warehouse in the city of Tampere and found parts for firearms with 3D printers. According to the NBI, two functional weapons were seized, as well as weapon parts and ammunition.
A fake application cheats criminals
The Trojan Shield / Greenlight operation was built around an ANOM application that the authorities placed on the devices and then shared among the criminal underworld.
Approximately 300 criminal groups used an estimated 12,000 encrypted devices in more than 100 countries during the operation from October 2019 to June 2021.
The FBI collected and processed a total of 27 million messages from the platform.
Sainio said the FBI voluntarily shared information with authorities in other countries, and the platform was not used for any non-criminal communication.
Source: The Nordic Page