Inside the Italian Mafia's Encrypted Phone of Choice (vice.com) 75
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a collaborative investigation between Motherboard, lavialibera, and IrpiMedia: Mafioso Bartolo Bruzzaniti needed everyone to do their job just right. First, the Colombian suppliers would hide a massive amount of cocaine inside bananas at the port city of Turbo, Colombia. That shipping container would then be transported across the ocean to Catania, in Sicily, Italy. A corrupt port worker on the mafia's payroll would wave the shipment through and had advised the group how to package the drugs. This was so the cocaine could remain undetected even if the worker was forced to scan the shipment. Another group of on-the-ground mafiosos would then unload the cocaine outside of the port.
In March 2021, Bruzzaniti, an alleged member of the infamous 'Ndrangheta mafia group and who says Milan belongs to him "by right," asked his brother Antonio to go fetch something else crucial to the traffickers' success. "Go right now," Bruzzaniti wrote in a text message later produced in court records. "It's needed urgently." Investigators know what Bruzzaniti said because European authorities had penetrated an encrypted phone network called Sky and harvested around a billion of the users' messages. These phones are the technological backbone of organized crime around the world.
The thing Antonio needed to urgently fetch was a phone from a different encrypted phone network, one that the authorities appear to have not compromised and which the mafia have been using as part of their operations. To that phone, a contact sent one half of the shipping container's serial number. A reporting collaboration between Motherboard, lavialibera, and IrpiMedia has identified that encrypted phone as being run by a company called No. 1 Business Communication (No. 1 BC). The investigation has found members of the mafia and other organized crime groups turning to No. 1 BC as authorities cracked down on other platforms. The collaboration has identified multiple key players in No. 1 BC's development, sales, and legal structure. "Take the bc1 right away," Bruzzaniti wrote in another text, referring to the No. 1 BC phone.
In March 2021, Bruzzaniti, an alleged member of the infamous 'Ndrangheta mafia group and who says Milan belongs to him "by right," asked his brother Antonio to go fetch something else crucial to the traffickers' success. "Go right now," Bruzzaniti wrote in a text message later produced in court records. "It's needed urgently." Investigators know what Bruzzaniti said because European authorities had penetrated an encrypted phone network called Sky and harvested around a billion of the users' messages. These phones are the technological backbone of organized crime around the world.
The thing Antonio needed to urgently fetch was a phone from a different encrypted phone network, one that the authorities appear to have not compromised and which the mafia have been using as part of their operations. To that phone, a contact sent one half of the shipping container's serial number. A reporting collaboration between Motherboard, lavialibera, and IrpiMedia has identified that encrypted phone as being run by a company called No. 1 Business Communication (No. 1 BC). The investigation has found members of the mafia and other organized crime groups turning to No. 1 BC as authorities cracked down on other platforms. The collaboration has identified multiple key players in No. 1 BC's development, sales, and legal structure. "Take the bc1 right away," Bruzzaniti wrote in another text, referring to the No. 1 BC phone.
LE to crooks: you will never be secure (Score:1)
Security in practice is a trade-off: I want to be secure, but do you want criminal enterprises to be secure from oversight by law enforcement?
This idea of civil liberties + "natsec" plus "law enforcement" is an unsolved problem in society. The discussions end up happening in private, since "libertarians" refuse to budge, meanwhile "politicians" don't understand technical risks.
Oh, and Apple's experiment to
Re: LE to crooks: you will never be secure (Score:1)
Re:LE to crooks: you will never be secure (Score:5, Insightful)
I want everyone to be secure from spying by anyone. Criminals vs LE is such a tiny corner case that it hardly matters, and definitely shouldn't be used as an excuse to curtail everyone else's rights.
If my message to my wife isn't of criminal nature (and guess what: it usually isn't), then why should anyone else have the means to read it?
Yes, my policy means criminals will get away with more crimes, but the rest of us matter more.
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Criminals vs LE is such a tiny corner case
If you're thinking of just this sort of mundane messaging than maybe, but there's nothing here to suggest that this example of surveillance was untargeted. They went after this network because the criminals were using it, and that seems to be the rule rather than the exception. This kind of privacy is under much greater threat from marketing and corporate interests than from law enforcement.
When it comes to money though, it's harder to make this case. Money laundering alone accounts for something like 5%
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I agree, but I also think it is impossible for legally sanctioned, targeted eavesdropping to work, unless you also enable illegal, untargeted eavesdropping.
Computers don't have built-in judges, to decide whether or not the user is behaving legally, or if user's attacker is behaving legally. If you're going to prevent illegal eavesdropping, whether by private parties or foreign governments, then by necessity you will also
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If my message to my wife isn't of criminal nature (and guess what: it usually isn't), then why should anyone else have the means to read it?
You've answered your own question by suggesting your matrimonial messages are sometimes of a criminal nature. Society needs the means to keep an eye on suspects like you two! :)
bananas (Score:2)
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There's always money in the banana stand
Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's cheaper. It's more humane. It's more effective with lower rates of drug use and better outcomes for everyone.
Everyone except for fake tough on crime right wing politician to economic policies fail miserably and who needs something they can offer voters instead.
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The legal system has too much money to lose by doing that.
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalize all drugs, have the government give the hard stuff away in a controlled setting and with addiction treatment nearby.
Nope, not my responsibility. Your body, your choice. Just like alcohol. You've been warned for decades of the dangers of using drugs, but you know better than the experts. Just like Herman Cain.
We cannot afford to babysit everyone. You want to do coke or meth, have it. I'm not going to stop you. Nor will I help you up.
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
> You want to do coke or meth, have it. I'm not going to stop you. Nor will I help you up.
The problem is that people with serious addictions become slaves to them - they will lie, cheat, steal, assault you, whatever to get their next fix. And of course you get to watch them slowly die on the streets while being a public nuisance and occasionally a threat.
Even if you don't care about saving a fellow human, your enlightened self interest is in preventing serious drug problems.
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you don't care about saving a fellow human, your enlightened self interest is in preventing serious drug problems.
So again, you want it to be my responsibility to do something? You want me to be the watcher of people and intervene if something might wrong? Does this apply to the obese and preventing them from eating at McDonald's? To guy in the pickup truck flying down the highway? Should I intervene there?
At some point people need to take responsibility for their own actions. A local radio host made a comment the other day that his family has a history of drug addiction and alcoholism and so, to be on the safe side, he never drinks. Ever. He brought this up in regard to the story about the woman in Australia who survived for three days on lollipops and wine when her vehicle broke down. He said, maybe, under those circumstances, he might drink the wine. That is what personal responsibility is about.
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> So again, you want it to be my responsibility to do something?
Surely not you personal responsibility.
We pay for crime and all that follows. A dollar spent on prevention, is more than a dollar saved cleaning up after crime.
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
God no. Ignore the problem, it's someone else's. That's sure to make the issue just disappear.
I'd rather spend some tax dollars than have junkies in alleys, and if some of them can be rehabilitated into functional people, that's awesome.
Your problem is you've classified them as sub-human and started hating them to the point you no longer care about the outcome, you just want to punish them. That's ultimately self-defeating. The problem will not go away because you don't like it... and because you're effectively ignoring it, it'll be worse than it otherwise would be.
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:4, Insightful)
So again, you want it to be my responsibility to do something?
You really are mentally defective. This is not about what anyone wants. It's not about what you want, the state wants, the addict wants... it's about what make sense. And it will cost you more to leave the junkie in the gutter than it will to help them get out of it. If all you care about is money (which you made abundantly clear several comments prior) then it still makes sense for you to be willing to spend some to help people who have become drug addicts. It doesn't even matter whether they became that way because they started using recreationally, or under prescription, although I believe that makes a minor moral difference. What matters [to you, more than anything else] is what will save you the most money, and what will save you the most money is legalizing all the drugs, taxing their sale, and providing care for addicts.
The fact that you're spending so much time arguing that addicts should be abandoned to their own devices indicates that you're a bastard, but doing it on the basis of economic benefit proves conclusively that you're an idiot.
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Re: Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:2)
Drug prevention pays-off today, but I think the OP was talking about legalizing drugs. In that case, treatment may not pay off because the cost to society is reduced significantly.
I was just reading some articles claiming drug prevention pays-off, which makes sense. But I am skeptical about treatment since statistically it doesn't work very well.
It already is your responsibility (Score:2)
That's not because your supposed to be a good person either. You ought to be, but that's not why you do it. You do it because if you don't society breaks down. Locking people up who cause problems doesn't work. Mass punishment doesn't work. It creates a huge underclass ripe for exploitation.
First, that under
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So again, you want it to be my responsibility to do something? You want me to be the watcher of people and intervene if something might wrong? Does this apply to the obese and preventing them from eating at McDonald's? To guy in the pickup truck flying down the highway? Should I intervene there?
You already are.
You are paying other people to do something and intervene.
Usually post facto and at a much greater cost to everyone (including you) than preventing the problem or acting early.
Yes. Even when it comes to the "obese and preventing them from eating at McDonald's".
Yes. Particularly when it comes to "guy in the pickup truck flying down the highway".
You are already intervening.
We tend to call that process and its product "civilization". As opposed to anarchy, crime, chaos and some might say barbar
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>Or even drinking fucking wine - and having that fabled personal responsibility to STOP
That may not be the best idea. There is evidence of genetic factors in addiction, so when the child of an addict tells me they want to steer clear of that 'first taste', I'm not going to argue with them. Why risk it? If alcoholism was subject to logic, we wouldn't have any alcoholics... they'd stop before it became a problem.
I have a friend who has never touched alcohol for that reason. And it kind of is a display
Re: Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:2)
Why drink the wine? It would only kill you faster by dehydrating you.
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The problem is that people with serious addictions become slaves to them - they will lie, cheat, steal, assault you, whatever to get their next fix.
Yeah, that's what happens when you let the criminals decide what drugs people get to take.
There's plenty of others that aren't so addictive.
Re: Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:1)
Insurance. Heard of it?
That worked out great for cigarettes (Score:2)
You either baby sit people or they take down civilization and you with it. A handful of lunatics with guns are now in charge of Afghanistan.
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> You've been warned for decades of the dangers of
> using drugs, but you know better than the experts.
Sure. And your so-called "experts" have also been lying to the public about the "dangers" of using drugs for all of those decades. I lived in San Francisco for over two decades. Pot is ubiquitous, if unfortunately stinky... probably even more common than tobacco. But while the city definitely had its problems; contrary to the propagandistic BS they you and your "experts" would have us believe, San
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:4, Informative)
A more realistic take of what was going on when those numbers spiked? They spiked in response to anti-drug bills introduced, sponsored, or supported by Joe Biden. He and his colleagues at the time, not Nixon, are the ones that turned the war on drugs into a mass incarceration policy.
Nixon certainly exploited the war on drugs to target undesirables, but people blame him for originating it, racializing it, and turning it into mass incarceration with bloated LE budgets, none of which falls on him. Biden is more responsible for the worst of the WoD than any other person, period.
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Nope, not my responsibility. Your body, your choice.
The majority of the people who do not believe in treatment for drug offenders also do not believe in your body, your choice. Thus, that response was either an obvious dog whistle, or conversely, horrendously oblivious to reality.
You've been warned for decades of the dangers of using drugs, but you know better than the experts.
If warning were sufficient to beat addiction, you would have a point. It isn't, so you don't.
You want to do coke or meth, have it. I'm not going to stop you. Nor will I help you up.
Yeah! Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Who gives a fuck about the cost to society when someone autoeuthanizes with drugs! Who cares if it's cheaper to care for drug abusers than not
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We cannot afford to babysit everyone. You want to do coke or meth, have it. I'm not going to stop you. Nor will I help you up.
Ah, the words of wisdom of someone who's never sat in court during a Child Protective Services docket. The issue is so much more complex than just "personal responsibility." There's a lot of collateral damage to drug addiction that cascades through society.
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Legalize all drugs, have the government give the hard stuff away in a controlled setting and with addiction treatment nearby. Treat addiction is a medical condition instead of as convenient political tool.
It's cheaper. It's more humane. It's more effective with lower rates of drug use and better outcomes for everyone.
Everyone except for fake tough on crime right wing politician to economic policies fail miserably and who needs something they can offer voters instead.
This has been proven false time and time and time and time and time again. I felt I needed to be extra clear. Each group who wants something 'swearzies' it will happen less if you just let them do it.
Classic manipulation. Smoking was legal, it boomed. Restricting it and limiting advertisements for it, helped reduce the rate of adoption.
Alcohol was legal, it boomed, trying to make it illegal again proved to be damn near impossible.
Legalized pot, it boomed. It will be damn near impossible if they want to chan
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Is it actually increasing in usage, or is it increasing in visibility?
It's not like people suddenly became homosexuals or transgender when it became socially acceptable.
They had to hide it before, and now they don't.
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I would say it's both. We could sum it up the word activity.
So drug activity has increased as a combination of increased usage, and increased visibility.
I would say I have no evidence that desire to use drugs has increased however. These people likely either wanted or intended to use drugs either way, and have increased their usage, and visibility.
It's like theft, lots of people may want to steal things / take things they want without paying for it. If you suddenly make it legal to take things, the people w
Re: Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:2)
A big concern I have with legalizing drugs, is how many people would try hard drugs if they were legal and easy to get.
There are likely a lot of people that would use opioids recreationally if they could buy pure drugs legally and easily, that don't because they are illegal, hard to get, and of questionable quality.
Same with stealing, and basically everything humans do, any increase in difficulty will stop a certain amount of people.
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Classic manipulation. Smoking was legal, it boomed. Restricting it and limiting advertisements for it, helped reduce the rate of adoption.
Smoking was never made illegal and driven to the black market.
It also doesn't get anybody high, it's just a filthy addiction. That's the part I never understood about smoking - why even do it in the first place?
Smoking boomed because of advertising and image. It was heavily marketed by the Mad Men. Remember all those old adverts with pictures of doctors smoking and saying it was healthy? [google.com]
It also didn't help that all servicemen were given free tobacco in WWII.
So ... you can't really compare smoking to oth
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Right, it was heavily promoted. I was using smoking as an example for something that was legal, and heavily promoted and caused massive health side effects.
Now that they restricted it, advertising and what not, usage has decreased a lot. I'm saying restrictions on things clearly shows it has merit.
Vaping was their bypass, that didn't have the same rules right away as smoking, so now kids are vaping because it's cool and smoking is "not".
Rate of adoption for smoking has decreased.
I'm not trying to say smokin
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A better comparison with street drugs would have been alcohol prohibition. How did that go?
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Short answer: It mostly made a lot of bootleggers and gangsters very rich.
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It's a fantastic comparison.
What happens when you take something that you have already made legal, and try to make it illegal.
Alcohol is still considered a problem, and they couldn't make it illegal again. It didn't work.
E.G Once you make drugs legal and realize, oh man we fucked up, it's too late. Alcoholics are already an issue, but something more addictive and more destructive? Oh yeah genius move.
You should look at that example as to why to NOT make drugs legal.
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P.S Smoking has been moving towards the black market as people can get it a lot cheaper in part due to the taxes the government has imposed on cigarette sales.
They taxed it heavily, a lot of smuggling of cigarettes is going on now, enough for reports to hit the news about store owners "concerned" for peoples health because they noticed the amount of people buying cigarettes from them has gone down but they still see people smoking just as much.
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Notice that drugs being illegal has its disadvantages too. Drug dealers have a great revenue stream because it is illegal. Law enforcement has additional work with it.
The question is whether it would not be better to make it legal and collect taxes from it. Use this revenue stream together with the savings from legalisation for marketing how drugs are harmful. Maybe it would be better overall.
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Notice that drugs being illegal has its disadvantages too. Drug dealers have a great revenue stream because it is illegal. Law enforcement has additional work with it.
The question is whether it would not be better to make it legal and collect taxes from it. Use this revenue stream together with the savings from legalisation for marketing how drugs are harmful. Maybe it would be better overall.
Well there might be merit to that but the current law doesn't allow people to sell it, or for them to tax it. It's like smoking, when they taxed it heavily, a lot of smuggling of cigarettes is going on now, enough for reports to hit the news about store owners "concerned" for peoples health because they noticed the amount of people buying cigarettes from them has gone down but they still see people smoking just as much.
If anything they empowered criminals more since their clients don't have to worry about
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What happened in the netherlands?
It's against the law to possess, sell or produce drugs in the Netherlands. It's tolerated in certain circumstances just like it is in Canada, and was before the law. You could go seek help and they wouldn't arrest you for drug possession as an example. I think you've used a bad example, as you will absolutely get arrested for using and carrying drugs on you in the Netherlands.
They have the same rules as Canada for soft drugs like pot though, which makes sense.
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Sorry it wasn't obvious, Canada had already adopted laws to allow for soft drugs, and even though the usage of them went up, I don't think it's a particular problem.
Canada has legalized hard drugs up to a certain amount for recreational use and possession. That's the current issue.
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Anonymous Coward, like everyone on your side. If you won't even stand by what you said with a pseudonym, it says it all doesn't it?
Get a job and pay for it yourself. - 2023 trigger words.
Did I say we wouldn't restrict it? (Score:2)
Drug usage in Canada did *not* increase. Instead people who were using drugs an no longer feared jail time came forward. They can now safely seek treatment. Same thing happened with left handed people. When we stopped treating them as demons the number of left handed people shot up.
You're immersed in pro-criminalization
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Legalize doesn't mean a free for all. What in God's good name made you think I was a libertarian? I literally said that I wanted the Government to give the hard stuff away for free.
Drug usage in Canada did *not* increase. Instead people who were using drugs an no longer feared jail time came forward. They can now safely seek treatment. Same thing happened with left handed people. When we stopped treating them as demons the number of left handed people shot up.
You're immersed in pro-criminalization propaganda. Find some new sources. Plenty of good peer reviewed studies online. You can easily find them with Google Scholar.
New sources? It's anecdotal experience. Seen it with my own eyes. Yeah, it's not all propaganda from whatever political party you don't like.
I'm going to clarify a few things for you right here. The amount of drug related activity and use, has definitely increased.
The one thing I might give you, but such a bastardized response doesn't really deserve but I'll give it to you anyway, is that it could be argued the amount of people who want or intend to use drugs, did not increase.
There are a lot of things peop
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My only question is what happens to the mafia after drugs are legal? Does everyone say "aww shucks" and get real jobs?
Re:Italy could solve their Mafia problem tomorrow (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's enough money left in it, yes. That's exactly what happens. Mafiosi take the money they already have and "go legit", as long as there remains money to be made. It's what has happened with cannabis in regions that have legalized it.
Money is money. Mafiosi aren't criminals because it's fun, they're criminals because it's profitable. If they can still be profitable without being criminals, a lot of them will choose that path.
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Mafiosi take the money they already have and "go legit", as long as there remains money to be made. It's what has happened with cannabis in regions that have legalized it.
No, it isn't, at least not universally. What has happened with cannabis in most regions that have legalized it is that cartels still use a bunch of poor feckless migrants and refugees to perform illegal grows because the bottom has dropped out of the market and it's the only way to make a decent profit due to the high cost of licensing. MOST of the legal (licensed) grow ops around Humboldt county, for example, have gone out of business and their land is for sale — they can't compete with unlicensed gr
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I'll agree about the current "race to the bottom" but that is a problem that is hardly unique to the cannabis industry. You may recall the same thing happening with netbooks circa 2009, and with Chromebooks in the 2010s. That's not a sustainable model. But unlike manufacturing computers, there's not a whole lot of ongoing cost involved in turning off the grow lights and waiting for profit margins to improve. It's not like the hardware will depreciate significantly while idle.
How is the illegal cannabis bein
Without all the drug money (Score:2)
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1) Sell to people it is still illegal to, minors, etc.
2) You sell drugs that are not legalized
3) With your lower overhead and regulations you undercut the price of the legal markets.
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Sure... alcohol prohibition was the product of a bunch of busy-body morality types.
But fast-forward to the war on drugs, and it's revealed as VERY MUCH a right wing attack on their perceived enemies... namely hippies and black people, whom Nixon wanted to suppress with law enforcement but couldn't work out how to write a law that would pass constitutional muster. But he was the master of presidential dirty tricks and did an end run around that annoying little technicality. And thus, the DEA was born.
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Legalize all drugs, have the government give the hard stuff away in a controlled setting and with addiction treatment nearby. Treat addiction is a medical condition instead of as convenient political tool.
It's cheaper. It's more humane. It's more effective with lower rates of drug use and better outcomes for everyone.
Everyone except for fake tough on crime right wing politician to economic policies fail miserably and who needs something they can offer voters instead.
While I do agree with those examples, that won't "solve the Mafia problem". Drugs are just one aspect of their activities.
I suggest picking up Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah. [wikipedia.org] It's a great read.
French connection? (Score:2)
Why are they texting each other in French?
trust (Score:2)
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Trust No. 1
It's sort of hidden in the name.
I Know (Score:2)
My phone (Score:2)
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