Bikies trafficking in data secrecy using Mexican BlackBerrys [telecom]

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Bikies trafficking in data secrecy using Mexican BlackBerrys

Natalie O'Brien February 6, 2011

BIKIE gangs and organised crime groups have foiled police attempts to tap their phones by importing untraceable, encrypted BlackBerrys from Mexico.

The telecommunications black hole exploited by the Comancheros gang and drug cartels has come to light after several nations - anxious about terrorism and national security - threatened to ban the Canadian-designed BlackBerry phones unless they were given the codes to break the encryption on emails and instant messages.

The Comancheros are understood to have linked up with a Mexican drug cartel importing cocaine into Australia and are sharing the technology. Advertisement: Story continues below

''There is nothing strange in organised crime having better access to technology than the authorities,'' said Michael Kennedy, a former police detective and an academic at the University of Western Sydney.

''The bikies are becoming more entrepreneurial and, after all, organised crime is a business enterprise. Crime groups will share technology if it helps them.''

The Comancheros are believed to use the phones sourced from Mexico with global roam activated. The roaming facility is expensive but criminals believe it is priceless to have communications that cannot be monitored.

What makes the BlackBerry so hard to ''tap'' is that Mexico has no reliable register of handsets, mobile numbers, or users. Vendors are unregistered and sell the phones and SIM cards for cash, no questions asked.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported that Mexico has

83 million mobile phones and government attempts to establish an official registry were failing.

In addition, the information carried on the encrypted BlackBerry messaging service is routed through a server that Australian authorities have not been able to access.

It is not known how many of the phones are used by organised crime groups in Australia. However, experts agree that the criminals will keep the technology advantage to themselves as long as they can.

''The Australian Crime Commission is aware that organised crime networks will continually take opportunities, some real and some imagined, to use new technologies to try and escape the law,'' chief executive John Lawler said.

The Australian Federal Police would not comment on whether they had seized any Mexican phones. But a spokesman said the the force was working with law enforcement authorities and industry groups to ensure it was up to speed ''on the challenges posed by criminal networks''.

Last year The Age revealed that the feared Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel was regularly importing cocaine into Australia. It was also revealed that several men with ties to Mexico, the US and Guatemala had set up a drug distribution network in New South Wales, which is now understood to have included links to the Comancheros.

Almost a dozen countries have raised security fears about encrypted BlackBerry phones.

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