In the center of the operation stands a 32-year-old man from Australia, described as a "data nerd". He is previously unconvicted and has lived at home with his parents in Sydney, where he is suspected of building up the service around Ghost phones used by thousands of criminals worldwide.
The phones have been marketed in the underworld as "impossible to hack" - but Australian police managed to get in and have secretly been able to follow criminals discussing drug deals, money laundering, murder, and other serious crimes for two years.
Through the information, they have been able to intervene in a large number of direct death threats, just in Australia, says David Mcclean at the federal police during a press conference in The Hague in the Netherlands.
We have been able to prevent as many as 50 people from being murdered or seriously injured, he says.
51 arrested
On Tuesday and Wednesday, they struck and arrested criminals from, among others, Italy, Ireland, Canada, and Australia - including the 32-year-old main suspect. In total, 51 people have been arrested: 38 in Australia, 11 in Ireland, one in Canada, and one in Italy.
Nine countries, including Sweden, have been involved in the operation coordinated by Europol.
No Swedes have been arrested and no arrests have been made in Sweden so far, says Ted Esplund, police commissioner at Noa, to TT.
He emphasizes, however, that Swedish police have been involved in the operation for a longer period. Among other things, they have located one of the servers that handled data from Ghost.
It's not a server in Sweden, says Esplund.
Less than Encrochat and Sky
In Sweden, the Ghost phones grew in popularity after the police cracked the encrypted services Encrochat and Sky, and it became clear that another service, called Anom, was a trap set by the American FBI.
Overall, however, the Ghost operation in the Swedish context is smaller compared to, for example, Encrochat or Sky, says Ted Esplund. But he does not rule out that Swedish arrests may be made.
We see that criminals are moving away from special-designed services for communication in favor of commercial variants like Whatsapp or Signal. This means that we need to become more precise in how we work against them compared to, for example, taking down a smaller, more specialized service.
Corrected: In an earlier version, there was an incorrect statement about arrests during the operation.
Ghost was created nine years ago, and to gain access to the encrypted communication service, modified phones have been required, which in Australia were sold for approximately 15,000 kronor. For that price, you got a half-year subscription that also included "technical support".
Ghost phones have, according to the police, been used exclusively by criminals.
The 32-year-old founder could be traced to Australia by French police. In 2022, Australian police managed to get into the app and gained access to encrypted content, by intercepting a software update sent to users.
