>The F.B.I.’s operation, according to court documents that the Justice Department unsealed on Monday, had its origins in early 2018 after the bureau dismantled a Canadian-based encryption service called Phantom Secure. That company, officials said, supplied encrypted cellphones to drug gangs, like Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, and other criminal groups.

>Seeing a void in the underground market, the F.B.I. recruited a former Phantom Secure distributor who had been developing a new encrypted communications system called Anom. The informant agreed to work for the F.B.I. and let the bureau control the network for the possibility of a reduced prison sentence, according to the court documents. The F.B.I. paid the informant $120,000, the documents said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/australia/operation... (from when it was first revealed to the public last month)