Australian police crack down on cybercrime app Ghost, leading to dozens of arrests worldwide

• Australian police announced they have successfully infiltrated Ghost, an encrypted messaging app designed for criminals.
• Jay Je Yoon Jung, the alleged administrator of the app, appeared in a Sydney court on charges of supporting a criminal organisation and benefiting from crime.
• Police arrested 38 suspects in raids across four Australian states. Additional arrests were made in Canada, Sweden, Ireland and Italy.

Australian police said Wednesday they had successfully infiltrated Ghost, an encrypted global messaging app designed for criminals, leading to dozens of arrests.

The alleged administrator of the app, Jay Je Yoon Jung, 32, appeared in a Sydney court on Wednesday charged with supporting a criminal organisation and benefiting from the proceeds of crime.

Jung has not entered a motion or applied for bail. He will remain behind bars until his case returns to court in November.

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Australian police have arrested 38 suspects in raids in four states in recent days, while law enforcement agencies have also made arrests in Canada, Sweden, Ireland and Italy, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said.

“We allege that hundreds of criminals, including Italian organised crime, members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, Middle Eastern organised crime and Korean organised crime, used Ghost in Australia and overseas to import illegal drugs and order killings,” McCartney told reporters.

Australian police have prevented the death, kidnapping or serious injury of 50 people by monitoring threats contained in 125,000 messages and 120 video calls since March, said Deputy Commissioner Kirsty Schofield.

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Police say Jung created the app in 2017 specifically for criminal purposes.

In 2022, Australia joined a global taskforce led by Europol to hunt Ghost.

Colonel Florian Manet, head of the technical department of the National Cyber ​​​​Command at the French Interior Ministry, said in a statement released by Australian police that his officers had been providing the task force with technical resources for several years to help decrypt the communications.

McCartney said the French “enabled” Australian police to decrypt the Ghost communications.

Australian police technicians were able to modify software updates regularly released by the administrator, McCartney said.

“We ended up infecting devices, which allowed us to access content that was on devices in Australia,” McCartney said, adding that the alleged administrator lived at his parents’ home in Sydney and had no police record.

Jung was arrested at his home on Tuesday.

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Police say Jung used a network of retailers to offer specialist phones to criminals around the world.

The modified smartphones were sold for $1,590, which included a six-month Ghost subscription and technical support.