Man Who Unknowingly Sold Bugged Phones to Cartel Members Gets Five Years – IOTW Report

Man Who Unknowingly Sold Bugged Phones to Cartel Members Gets Five Years

Courthouse News

A man who distributed bugged phones to Colombian drug traffickers and money launderers as part of a bizarre international FBI sting operation was sentenced to over five years in prison for racketeering and conspiracy in a San Diego federal courtroom.      

“Your honor, I want to say sorry to my family,” said Osemah Elhassen during Friday’s hearing. “I was naive and I lost everything.”

Elhassen is the first of 17 defendants to be sentenced in a RICO case revolving around Anom, a company that advertised its phones and an accompanying messaging app as being encrypted and safe enough for criminals around the world to use to discreetly coordinate a panoply of illegal acts. 

But Anom was bugged by the FBI from the start. More

7 Comments on Man Who Unknowingly Sold Bugged Phones to Cartel Members Gets Five Years

  1. I was thinking this evening, maybe this is how the FBI keeps the cartels from killing this guy and it’s all for show. He might stand out a bit too much to go into the standard witness protection program.

    If not and this guy goes into general population, I doubt he’ll serve out his sentence.

    5

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