Finnish police have made almost one hundred arrests as part of a major international crackdown on organised crime gangs.
The so-called Operation Trojan Shield/OTF Greenlight, which was jointly conceived by the FBI and authorities in Australia, tricked criminals around the world into using an FBI-encrypted messaging app called ANOM.
In addition to the FBI, the covert operation was led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as well as Dutch and Swedish police. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation Europol and 16 other countries, including Finland, also participated.
During the operation, the FBI was able to read millions of messages in "real time" describing drug smuggling, money laundering and even murder plots. This information was then passed on to the relevant authorities in each country.
Inspector Kimmo Sainio from Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Central Criminal Police stated in a press release that the bureau has been able to initiate preliminary investigations in Finland based on the information received from the FBI. Sainio added that the investigations will be carried out into organised crime gangs, and in particular drug syndicates.
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In Finland, authorities have so far confiscated a total of more than 500 kilos of drugs, dozens of weapons and hundreds of thousands of euros in cash. The nearly one hundred arrests in Finland were part of a globally coordinated operation carried out on Monday.
As part of Monday's operation, customs officers searched a warehouse in the city of Tampere, and found parts for firearms were being manufactured with 3D printers. The NBI said two functional weapons as well as weapon parts and ammunition were confiscated.
Fake app fools criminals
The Trojan Shield/Greenlight operation was built around the ANOM app, which authorities placed on devices and then distributed among the criminal underworld.
In total, an estimated 12,000 encrypted devices were used by some 300 criminal gangs in more than 100 countries during the course of 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 anything other than communication between criminals.
