> it’s some kind if dedicated device that doesn’t do sms, mail or voice, only encrypted messages (that the law enforcement had the keys to).

I gotta be honest, I would find the idea there kind of appealing ...

Yep! And you could only get one of these devices via a recommendation from another crook who already had one, and they cost between 1.5k-2.5k, paid in BTC apparently.

It's pretty interesting! Can't wait for more details on the scheme.

Aka customized (and backdoored) Android firmware.

Oh that's even more delicious - it's like a modern version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes story or the drug dealers new phone in this instance - That the dealer was sold on the aspect that it would be invisible to the law. It just get's better and better.

It was much more than drug dealers.

Generally drug dealers are servants of their community, providing goods and services to people in a collegial manner.

These were viscous, murderous, gangsters. Their greed and hubris bought them down as much as cleaver policing. Which is not to minimise the cleverness of the coppers, very cleaver, very smart. Get these parasites out of our communities.

Where do you think the "servants of the community" dealers get their supply from?

For drugs like MDMA from cooperative chemists

For drugs like cannabis from neighbourhood indoor growers.

For drugs like synthetic opioids (ad Ketamine) directly from the pharmaceutical companies.

For drugs like cocaine and natural opiates they are imported from revolutionary groups mostly. This one is tricky, as the other end of the trade tends to be fairly brutish, so there is a thriving "middle man" business.

I do not get your point.

My point is that dealing illegal drugs is a community service. The laws are complete bullshit, no body with half a ounce of sense thinks they are socially useful, they are maintained for reasons of brute power and political lag. They are failing