Phantom Secure
Encrypted mobile phone-based communications network and service provider From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Phantom Secure was a Canadian company that provided modified secure mobile phones, which were equipped with a remotely operated kill switch.[1] After its shutdown, criminal users fled to alternatives including ANOM, which turned out to be a honeypot run by the FBI.
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Arrest and conviction of Vincent Ramos
CEO Vincent Ramos was arrested at an Over Easy restaurant in Bellingham, Washington on 7 March 2018. At the time he lived in Richmond, British Columbia. Ramos had turned state's witness by June. Vincent Ramos did not provide login information or backdoors to Phantom Secure, deciding to instead serve the max sentence given, which was nine years in US prison.[1][2] Ramos pled guilty to a RICO charge and a secondary charge of conspiracy to traffic drugs was dropped.[3][4]
It was said to have provided "secure communications to high-level drug traffickers and other criminal organization leaders" according to a 2018 FBI takedown announcement.[5] Its CEO, Vincent Ramos, was sentenced in 2019 to a nine-year prison sentence after telling undercover agents that he created the device to help drug traffickers. Customers included members of the Sinaloa Cartel,[6] and the FBI reportedly asked Ramos to plant a backdoor in Phantom Secure's encrypted network, which he refused to do.[7]
Ramos was released from US federal prison in November 2024 and deported back to Canada.[8]
Cameron Ortis
In September 2019 the RCMP arrested a man charged with leaking information to foreign entities. Cameron Ortis was director general of the National Intelligence Coordination Centre, a branch of the RCMP that specialised in analytics. He had been running the NICC since 2016 having joined the RCMP in 2007 as a strategic analyst from an academic background in technology and crime, after completing a PhD at the University of British Columbia before he joined.[1]
In 2018 a joint operation between the RCMP and FBI indicated that there might be a mole, the investigation led to the arrest of Ortis. Media reports have linked his arrest to Phantom Secure.[9]
He faces five charges under the Security of Information Act and the Criminal Code.[1][9]
Charges against him include that in 2015 he supplied "special operational information" to "V.R", believed to be Vincent Ramos.[1] In early 2024, Ortis was sentenced to 14 years in prison.[10]
See also
References
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