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What is 'Ghost', the most important application of criminals after the capture of 'SKY'

2024-09-20 15:46:00, Aktualitet CNA
What is 'Ghost', the most important application of criminals after the
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Another encrypted app used by the underworld has been cracked by law enforcement.

An international operation coordinated by Europol led to the arrest of dozens of people in several countries around the world after the analysis of conversations on the "Ghost" application.

The "Ghost" application in Australia was used to coordinate the secret communications of members of an Albanian criminal syndicate, according to one of the Australian media.

One of those arrested, suspected of trafficking cannabis worth 1.2 million dollars, turns out to be linked to Albanian organized crime.

This application is also expected to reveal communications between criminal groups for unsolved murders, drug trafficking, assassinations and many other events for which there is still no person responsible before the justice bodies.

What is "Ghost"?

The market for encrypted messaging apps is booming, with WhatsApp being the most well-known and popular service.

These apps encrypt messages to prevent strangers from reading private conversations and are not illegal.

But several features of the Ghost service, which first appeared on the scene in 2021, made it much more attractive to criminals, according to Europol.

Users would purchase a customized phone instead of simply downloading the app to their phone.

Users could receive the "Ghost" phone without providing any personal information or an existing phone number, making it 100% anonymous, Europol said.

The service used three separate encryption standards, and users could wipe the phone's data remotely if it was caught by authorities.

Europol said Ghost used "hidden" servers in Iceland and France, while its founder was in Australia.

Who used it?

According to the police, "Ghost" was used almost exclusively by criminals.

Europol said the app had several thousand users worldwide with around 1,000 messages exchanged every day.

Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, deputy executive director of Europol, said the operation had taken an important means of communication out of the hands of serious and organized crime.

"This tool enabled drug trafficking, arms trading, extreme violence and large-scale money laundering," he said.

So far, 51 people have been arrested in connection with the operation, most of them in Australia.





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