{"id":60512,"date":"2018-03-12T06:14:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T06:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=60512"},"modified":"2018-03-12T06:14:25","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T06:14:25","slug":"fbi-arrests-ceo-allegedly-sold-modded-phones-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/fbi-arrests-ceo-allegedly-sold-modded-phones-criminals.html","title":{"rendered":"FBI arrests CEO who allegedly sold modded phones to criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">FBI arrests CEO who allegedly sold modded phones to criminals<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Custom encrypted phones have long been used by criminal gangs as a way for members to securely communicate with each other, but law enforcement agencies are cracking down on companies that provide them. One of the most well-established sellers of the these modded Android and BlackBerry devices, Phantom Secure, has just seen its owner arrested by the FBI for allegedly helping criminal organizations that include the Sinaloa drug cartel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">As reported by Motherboard, founder and CEO of Canada-based firm Phantom, Vincent Ramos, has been charged with racketeering, conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs, conspiracy to distribute narcotics, and aiding and abetting. The complaint alleges that the company was created specifically to aid criminals and that the \u201cupper echelon members\u201d of infamous groups including the Sinaloa cartel\u2014a drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime syndicate\u2014bought the phones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The complaint says that Phantom removes the microphone, camera, GPS navigation, internet browsing, and normal messaging services from devices before selling them. It also uses Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software to keep criminals\u2019 conversations secure. FBI Special Agent Nicholas Cheviron believes there are 20,000 Phantom phones in use around the world, half of which are in Australia, earning tens of millions of dollars for the company.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Uncover agents reportedly asked Phantom if they could use its phones to securely send messages such as \u201csending MDMA to Montreal.\u201d The company said it was \u201ctotally fine.\u201d Most damning of all, Ramos is said to have told the sting operation\u2019s agents: \u201cWe made it\u2014we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking] too.\u201d Furthermore, a convicted member of the Sinaloa cartel said the gang bought Phantom\u2019s phones &#8220;specifically&#8221; for drug trafficking purposes, which led to the aiding and abetting charge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">An FBI spokesperson and Ramos\u2019 lawyer declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">There are still plenty of companies that sell encrypted phones under the guise of offering extra security for individuals and companies who require it, when in reality their primary customers are gang members. But this latest incident shows that law enforcement is pushing back against those who knowingly enable crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.techspot.com\/news\/73657-fbi-arrests-ceo-who-allegedly-sold-modded-phones.html<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/fbi-arrests-ceo-allegedly-sold-modded-phones-criminals.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FBI arrests CEO who allegedly sold modded phones to criminals Custom encrypted phones have long been used by criminal gangs as a way for members to securely communicate with each other, but law enforcement agencies are cracking down on companies that provide them. One of the most well-established sellers of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5470],"tags":[8678,293,124231,124232],"class_list":["post-60512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-blackberry","tag-crime","tag-fbi-arrests-ceo-who-allegedly-sold-modded-phones-to-criminals","tag-modded-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}