13 Arrests in Hungary in International Police Raid

More than 800 people, including Hungarians, were arrested in a single day as part of the police operation Trojan Shield in several countries around the world, thanks to a new covert messaging platform, Anom.

Since the messages and pictures sent on the platform were seen by the investigators, it was not difficult to crack down on them. It was the Anom service that the criminals were using, once it became common knowledge that even the authorities were not aware of the communications going on there. But this was not true: as it turns out, Anom was actually set up and run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Work on Anom began in 2018, and was then introduced to underworld figures through a drug trafficker who fled to Turkey. The bait worked, as hundreds of people started using it within a short time. Altogether, Anom allowed agents to monitor 11,800 devices in 90 countries, tracking activity by as many as 300 distinct transnational crime organizations.

The case also involved investigation in Hungary: according to a press release on police.hu, 13 people were arrested in Budapest and Szekszárd, who were also communicating with Anom. During the search of the 13 people's residences and addresses (25 locations in total), investigators found 57 kilograms of marijuana, about 3.5 kilograms of cocaine, 3.5 kilograms of amphetamines, ecstasy tablets, crystalline drug paraphernalia, fentanyl and 13 kilograms of caffeine used as cutting agent. During the enforcement operations, cash in excess of HUF 140 million, cryptocurrency worth HUF 8.5 million and seven cars were seized.