This major international investigation began with the seizure of two mobile phones in a small rural Swedish town. Data extracted from these devices then surprisingly revealed a global criminal web spanning Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Sometimes, even data from a couple of seized phones is enough for investigators to grasp the straw and uncover a huge criminal conspiracy.

In a slick and triumphant press conference on Friday, Europol announced the results of a successful international investigation of a global top-tier organized crime network. It said fifteen individuals were arrested in Australia, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand.

What’s especially stunning is that the investigators in various countries didn’t even know that the scheme existed.

The true scale of these networks, involved in large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering, only became apparent once the data inside the two phones, confiscated in 2023 from a drug trafficker in a small rural town in Sweden, was investigated.

“When investigators unlocked the devices, they uncovered not one group but a constellation of interconnected criminal networks orchestrating large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering,” said Europol in a press release.

What looked like a local investigation quickly escalated because forensic analysis of the devices revealed encrypted communications, international contacts, and operational details pointing far beyond Sweden.

It soon became clear that multiple interconnected criminal networks have been dealing in synthetic drugs and large-scale money laundering through a sophisticated web of corporate entities used to obscure ownership, logistics, and financial flows.

Unsurprisingly, it took time, but on March 4th, authorities carried out about 20 simultaneous house searches, striking key nodes of the network. At least 15 arrests were made in Sweden, Thailand, Spain, and Australia.

“Coordinated enforcement actions across multiple countries have now struck at the heart of this structure, disrupting key actors,” said Europol.

According to Andy Kraag, head of Europol’s European Serious and Organised Crime Centre, the global criminal enterprise was coordinating its operations through encrypted communications and online marketplaces.

“For more than two years, investigators followed the trail, turning fragments of intelligence into coordinated international action,” said Kraag.

It’s unclear exactly how the investigators broke into the seized phones, but if they weren’t encrypted, it probably wasn't difficult. The criminals were certainly not using Ghost, an encrypted messaging system.

For almost a decade, Ghost sold encrypted phones to criminals, including mafia groups, drug traffickers, and money launderers, giving them a way to communicate privately.

This included the ability to self-erase all messages on a phone, preventing law enforcement from recovering the data during forensic investigations. However, Europol said in 2024 it had taken down Ghost.

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