According to the Swedish public broadcasting company SVT, Ghost has been marketed to criminals as a messaging service whose encryption is impossible to crack.
The European Union’s law enforcement cooperation agency Europol has succeeded in breaking the protection of an encrypted communication service called Ghost. This is reported, for example, in Sweden public broadcasting company SVT.
The Ghost messaging service has been used mainly for criminal purposes, such as drug dealing and ordering murders for hire. The service became popular with criminal organizations in 2020, when the authorities managed to break the encryption of the Enrochat service.
According to SVT, Ghost has been marketed to criminals as a messaging service whose encryption is impossible to crack. Its use has cost a little over 600 euros in Sweden over six months.
51 arrests have already been made in connection with Europol’s operation called Kraken, of which 38 have been made in Australia and 11 in Ireland. A total of nine countries participated in the operation, Austria, Canada, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States.
– Police authorities have realized that preventing drug smuggling and contract killings requires access to criminals’ communication channels, SVT’s crime reporter Diamant Salihu says.