> The operation came into being after the FBI took down a Canadian-based encryption service called Phantom Secure. Phantom Secure was marketing its services to criminal elements, offering secure communications through the encrypted cellphones that the company provided to syndicates. When the company was dismantled in 2018, the FBI sought to fill the void in the black market for secure criminal communications. To make that happen, the agency recruited a former distributor of Phantom Secure as an informant who, in return for reduced jail time, not only helped develop an encrypted communications system called ANOM, but helped market it to insular networks of criminal buyers.
Will try to find it, but it was awhile back.
edit:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/encrypted-messag...
> The operation came into being after the FBI took down a Canadian-based encryption service called Phantom Secure. Phantom Secure was marketing its services to criminal elements, offering secure communications through the encrypted cellphones that the company provided to syndicates. When the company was dismantled in 2018, the FBI sought to fill the void in the black market for secure criminal communications. To make that happen, the agency recruited a former distributor of Phantom Secure as an informant who, in return for reduced jail time, not only helped develop an encrypted communications system called ANOM, but helped market it to insular networks of criminal buyers.