New developments in the AN0M drug-bust saga have come to light, owing to proceedings outlined in court documents seen by The Sydney Morning Herald.
Among those, that NSW police allege Emmanuel Vamvoukakis, who was charged in June 2021 as part of the sting dubbed Operation Ironside, used AN0M to organise a cocaine deal with a contact in Greece known as Marinopoulos, the Herald reports.
Vamvoukakis, the claimed Sergeant-at-Arms of the outlaw motorcycle gang Comanchero’s South Coast chapter, allegedly spoke with his Greek contact about importing a kilogram of cocaine to Australia using the app in early 2021, according to documents released by the NSW district court.
The Herald reports that the pair allegedly maintained correspondence in the early months of 2021 discussing the particulars of their plot to smuggle the controlled substance into the country.
The AN0M service was an apparently secure smartphone-based messaging app allegedly used by criminal elements to discuss the logistics of their operations away from the prying eyes of law-enforcement.
Coming into the hands of users as specially modified mobile phones, the devices featured a number of alterations designed to mask the digital footprint they left behind.
But unbeknownst to those who’d been drawn into the scheme, the simultaneous execution of search warrants by the AFP, FBI, Europol and other agencies on 8 June 2021 brought a shocking revelation to light.
AN0M was revealed to be an elaborate “honeypot”, a piece of trojan horse malware coaxing users into a false sense of security and anonymity, which ultimately led to the arrest of over 800 suspects.
Soon after the FBI and AFP made clear that the app had been designed for the purpose of giving law enforcement agencies the ability to monitor the doings of criminal networks in real-time.
According to the Herald, court documents say that Vamvoukakis met with a woman in Newtown, Sydney on May 31, 2021.
While police allege the pair never spoke directly, they say Vamvoukakis put $50,000 in cash in the boot of the woman’s car, with Marinopoulos allegedly messaging them both from Greece via the app.
Raids on Vamvoukakis’ residence in June 2021 allegedly discovered a cash counting machine, an AN0M phone, a few grams of cocaine and Comanchero paraphernalia, the Herald reports.
Vamvoukakis appeared at NSW’s Downing Centre District Court late last month, where his barrister Ertunç Özen, SC, told the court he’d been incarcerated for the past 21 months and was yet to face trial.
“The case against Mr Vamvoukakis really rises and falls on AN0M and my instructions are that it will be challenged,” Özen said according to the Herald.
Dozens of other cases which rely on the use of material gathered over the course of the AN0M sting are stuck in limbo pending the outcome of legal challenges in Victoria, SA and NSW.
