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Phantom Secure

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Encrypted mobile phone-based communications network and service provider
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Phantom Secure was a Canadian company that provided modified secure mobile phones, which were equipped with a remotely operated kill switch. After its shutdown, criminal users fled to alternatives including ANOM, which turned out to be a honeypot run by the FBI.

Arrest of Vincent Ramos

CEO Vincent Ramos was arrested at an Over Easy restaurant in Bellingham, Washington on 7 March 2018. At the time he lived in Richmond, British Columbia. Ramos had turned state's witness by June. Vincent Ramos did not provide login information or backdoors to Phantom Secure, deciding to instead serve the max sentence given, which was nine years in US prison.

Convictions

It was said to have provided "secure communications to high-level drug traffickers and other criminal organization leaders" according to a 2018 FBI takedown announcement. Its CEO, Vincent Ramos, was sentenced in 2019 to a nine-year prison sentence after telling undercover agents that he created the device to help drug traffickers. Customers included members of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the FBI reportedly asked Ramos to plant a backdoor in Phantom Secure's encrypted network, which he refused to do.

Cameron Ortis

In September 2019 the RCMP arrested a man charged with leaking information to foreign entities. Cameron Ortis was director general of the National Intelligence Coordination Centre, a branch of the RCMP that specialised in analytics. He had been running the NICC since 2016 having joined the RCMP in 2007 as a strategic analyst from an academic background in technology and crime, after completing a PhD at the University of British Columbia before he joined.

In 2018 a joint operation between the RCMP and FBI indicated that there might be a mole, the investigation led to the arrest of Ortis. Media reports have linked his arrest to Phantom Secure.

He faces five charges under the Security of Information Act and the Criminal Code.

Charges against him include that in 2015 he supplied "special operational information" to "V.R", believed to be Vincent Ramos. In early 2024, Ortis was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

See also

References

  1. ^ Ling, Justin (20 April 2021). "The Rise and Fall of a Double Agent". The Walrus. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  2. https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/richmond-it-expert-sentenced-to-9-years-in-u-s-prison-for-helping-violent-criminal-organizations
  3. Staff (16 March 2018). "International Criminal Communication Service Dismantled: Phantom Secure Helped Drug Traffickers, Organized Crime Worldwide". Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  4. Lamoureux, Mack; Cox, Joseph (29 May 2019). "CEO Who Sold Encrypted Phones to the Sinaloa Cartel Sentenced to Nine Years". Vice Motherboard.
  5. Cox, Joseph (18 September 2019). "The FBI Tried to Plant a Backdoor in an Encrypted Phone Network". Vice Motherboard. A third source told Motherboard "He never gave law enforcement a backdoor into Phantom Secure. He did not do that." When pressed on whether the FBI still asked for access, the source, who worked directly on the case, said, "Basically that's all I want to say. He did not give law enforcement a backdoor into Phantom Secure." ... One of the sources said Ramos did not have the technical knowledge to implement a backdoor though, and so the FBI asked Ramos to lure another Phantom member who could. Ramos declined, the source said.
  6. ^ "Cameron Ortis: What we know so far about the national security case". BBC News. 27 September 2019. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  7. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cameron-ortis-sentencing-1.7105127
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