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A further 14 people have been charged, and nearly $28 million in cash and assets have been seized following an Australian Federal Police investigation into an encrypted app used by gangsters to plot murderous violence and coordinate a global drug trade.
Ghost, the underworld’s “unhackable” app, is alleged to have been operated from a bedroom in a suburban Melbourne home. More than 700 police raided homes in a two-day blitz in September after the app was infiltrated by the AFP.
Further raids took place across Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Canada in a global take-down of the encrypted network.
On Saturday, the AFP said 230 kilograms of illicit drugs were stopped from entering the Australian market in the operation. Twenty-nine illegal weapons have been seized, along with $3.4 million in cash and $24.37 million in assets. Police were also forced to intervene in about 50 threats to life since the breached messages began hitting its data teams in March this year.
A total of 52 people have been arrested in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia, includingaccused drug lord Guy Habkouk, who allegedly used Ghost to plot to acquire machine guns, bombs, hand grenades, rocket launchers and flags with terrorist insignia.
Others have been charged with crimes including trafficking illicit drugs, money laundering, ordering killings and threatening serious violence.
Melbourne man Jay Je-Yoon Jung is the alleged architect and “administrator” of Ghost.
The 32-year-old was arrested in his parents’ suburban brick home in Narwee in September and has been charged with trafficking commercial quantities of cocaine and MDMA, dealing with more than $1 million worth of cryptocurrency reckless to whether it was the proceeds of crime, and $50,000 of criminal money, and contravening lawful orders to hand over information about serious crimes.
Police also seized a black high-end Mercedes, which would have sold for almost $300,000 when brand new, and $9.3 million in cryptocurrency linked to Jung.
AFP Commander Paula Hudson said nearly 400 Ghost devices were used in Australia, with 162,000 messages sent over the app’s near decade-long lifetime.
“As criminals evolve their methodologies, the AFP and law enforcement agencies around the world will continue to exploit their vulnerabilities and disrupt the cyber-infrastructures that help facilitate serious organised crime,” she said.
“The AFP will never give up in the fight against organised crime. We do this to keep Australians safe – that is our number one job.”