Ghost Criminal Platform Busted in International Justice Operation

By Connor Foster

This past week international law enforcement scored a win in Dublin, Ireland with the takedown of the encrypted chat platform called Ghost. The platform was largely used to facilitate criminal activities such as money laundering, international drug-trafficking, and extreme violence. The Irish police Gardaí searched 27 locations with the support of various other law enforcement agencies like Europol, the FBI, and the Australian Federal Police. The search was conducted after an investigation of criminal groups in the Dublin area and resulted in the seizure of 300,000 pounds, cryptocurrency keys, and 42 potential Ghost encrypted devices, among other paraphernalia. This is only the most recent victory in the ongoing battle between international law enforcement and the various platforms that enable global cyber-crime. This sort of inter-country collaboration to address digital organized crime is vital in uncovering the wide-reaching linkages between different groups and individuals. For example, the owners of Ghost were found to be in Australia while servers were set up in France and Iceland. 

This breakthrough has been a long time in the making as a Europol Operational Taskforce was established in 2022 to start investigating Ghost. As the usage of encryption technologies and cryptocurrency increases it will only become easier to carry out illicit activity through these networks. Each time one site gets taken down another often takes its place. International law enforcement will have to keep constant vigilance in looking for signs of such operations as they continue to play a larger part in organized crime.