Phantom Secure Exec Sentenced to 9 Years for Selling Blackberrys to CDS

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Zeta

Sentenced to 9 years in prison: the director of company that sold Blackberrys to the Sinaloa Cartel

The director of a company providing telecommunications equipment and services encrypted to the Sinaloa Cartel was sentenced to nine years in federal court in San Diego, California on crime charges related to the facilitation of drug trafficking.

Vincent Ramos, chief executive of the Canadian company Phantom Secure, must deliver $ 80 million dollars, which represents the profits of his business with the Sinaloa Cartel, to the US government as part of the ruling issued this day, the South District Attorney's Office reported in San Diego California.

This is the first time that the United States government has brought a company to court for selling services to a transnational criminal organization with knowledge that they would be used for illicit activities.

For the District Attorney, Robert Brewer, the Vincent Ramos company had an active participation in the Sinaloa Cartel's ability to coordinate their crimes without being tracked by the authorities.

Phantom Secure was a formally established company that offered services that could not be intervened or deciphered, not even by the government. For this reason, according to documents presented at the Court, the company erased and destroyed evidence of equipment that it knew had been confiscated by public security and law enforcement agencies.

In October 2018, Ramos was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and since then, the Office of the Prosecutor presented evidence against him, such as communications records he maintained with his employees, in which he reported that he had just concluded a deal with the Sinaloa Cartel.

With only six of the Blackberry phones modified and encrypted, the Prosecutor's Office showed, the Sinaloa Cartel was able to coordinate the transfer of more than one ton of cocaine from Mexico to the United States and from there to Canada and Australia.

The investigations of the Prosecutor's Office show that the Sinaloa Cartel used at least 7,000 of these pieces of communications equipment at the time that Ramos was arrested.

Four other Co-Conspirators on the Run:

The Justice Department’s announcement names Kim Augustus Rodd from Phuket, Thailand; Younes Nasri from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates; and Michael Gamboa and Christopher Poquiz both from Los Angeles as alleged co-conspirators of Vincent Ramos, Phantom’s Canada-based CEO. All five are charged with racketeering conspiracy offenses and conspiracy to aid and abet the distribution of narcotics, both of which carry a maximum of life in prison.

Notably, although authorities have arrested Ramos, the four remaining defendants are not in custody, and are currently fugitives, according to the Justice Department press release.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement, “The indictment of Vincent Ramos and his associates is a milestone against transnational crime.”

“Phantom Secure allegedly provided a service designed to allow criminals the world over to evade law enforcement to traffic drugs and commit acts of violent crime without detection. Ramos and his company made millions off this criminal activity, and our takedown sends a serious message to those who exploit encryption to go dark on law enforcement,” he added.

See the US DOJ Indictment here