**⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | A Riveting Account of a High-Stakes Operation**

Joseph Cox’s *Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever* delivers a thrilling and detailed account of an unprecedented law enforcement operation. The book skillfully navigates the complex world of international crime and undercover work, revealing the intricacies of the sting operation and its far-reaching implications. Cox’s storytelling is engaging and well-researched, providing readers with a front-row seat to a dramatic and high-stakes operation. While some technical aspects may be challenging for general readers, the book’s compelling narrative and insider insights make it a captivating read for those interested in crime and law enforcement.

On June 7, 2021, police forces around the world staged history’s largest law-enforcement action. From Australia to Spain, hundreds of bleary-eyed criminals woke up to their doors being kicked in. There were more than 500 arrests; 12 tons of cocaine, 22 tons of hash or marijuana, and over 300 firearms were seized. It was the culmination of several years of intelligence-gathering, masterminded by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.

As Joseph Cox recounts in “Dark Wire,” the long road to the execution of this joint action could be traced back to a challenge the police started facing in the early 2000s: Their suspects, they found, were increasingly using specially encrypted phones supplied by a niche market of providers who were modifying commercially available handsets to run bespoke systems....

full review at:
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/dark-wire-review-phone-service-from-the-fbi-16fc1a5f

I'll give it three stars, sure. The story felt important, certainly entertaining. You've got the FBI acting in concert with other nations around the world to catch violent criminals. There's a deus ex machina. It's a true life techno thriller. Unfortunately, the writing lacks the thriller part. This thing reads like a math textbook. I felt nothing. If an author writes about a storm I expect to taste it, I need to smell it and certainly see it. Ominous; thunder cracks send sharp signals up the spine. Lightning flashing in the distance reveals grim rain. Shadows swirling in the dimly lit streets. Gotterdamerung upon us.
Joseph Cox got his hands on a story equivalent to a crossfire hurricane and proceeds to give temperature and wind speed in hourly intervals.

The cat and mouse game between law enforcement and criminals is eternal and it often leads to a really good tale. In this case the story verges on the incredible. The law is behind an encrypted phone service used by drug traffickers giving them access to vast amounts of information. The operation”s reach is world wide and Joseph Cox did a tremendous amount of research to lay out how it came about and was run. There are accounts of drug deals, money laundering, and planned assassinations. Cox includes both sides. The book flows easily through a good deal of detail. The final chapter sums up the operation’s accomplishments and how they fit in the greater scheme of cat and mouse.

What An Unbelievable True Story

This book is one of the few books I have read that lived up to the hype on the cover page. While I usually read police procedurals, this book covers actual crime and law enforcement agencies worldwide who work to break up drug smuggling and money laundering activities by attacking their critical infrastructure, i.e., their secure communications.

The first chapter provides the story of an ex-USC football player, Owen Hanson. As he got into performance-enhancing drugs at USC in around 2004, he started to deal with them as well, with a list of clients that included professional athletes. Before long, Hanson moved on to selling recreational narcotics like cocaine and ecstasy. After the 2008 financial crisis, he was at the helm of his illegal gambling enterprise. This case was chosen because it introduces the use of an encrypted phone service to shield criminal activities from the authorities. The phones were modified Blackberries, with the camera, microphone, and GPS were removed. These phones only had texting available.

Subsequent chapters provide the details of numerous encrypted phone networks worldwide and their expansion of use globally. The measure of the effectiveness of encrypted phone use increases the probability of even larger shipments of illegal drugs. These aspects of the novel were eye-opening for me. I’ve seen news about how drug traffic was increasing but not how encrypted phone use facilitated this growth.

Then, the unbelievable occurs. A person fundamental to developing a successful encryption phone wanted to do something different. Before, all phones were based on modifying commercially available cell phones. He designed one from the ground up, providing text, voice, and camera capabilities. To help, he asked the FBI for funding in exchange for allowing the FBI to provide a module that would send all transmissions to the FBI. The question is, can the FBI spend money on developing an encryption phone for criminals? What the FBI could and couldn’t do and why were interesting. What foreign law enforcement agencies could join with the FBI at the start and when the sting progressed were also interesting.

The rest of the book was quite detailed on the operations of the drug dealers and smugglers as it was based on their texts, conversations, and videos. See how law enforcement affects criminal operations and how they adapt. I found it fascinating how steadfast the criminals were to these new encryption phones. This part of the book was the most interesting for me.

The remaining chapters provided the events of the international sting on which the critical infrastructure the drug dealers and smugglers relied was turned against them. These are the chapters that I enjoyed reading the most. If you want to read about a very successful international sting and insight into how drug dealers and smugglers work, this is a book to read. I recommend reading this book. I rate it with five stars.

The last chapter covers the announcement by the FBI and the mass arrests that followed. The authors report that two significant criminals were not arrested. The events in this book end around September 2023. I used the Internet to discover if their status had changed. I found that both were arrested in October 2003. I could not find any extradition or prosecution against them.

I received this novel's free prepublication e-book version through NetGalley from Public Affairs. My review is based solely on my own reading experience of this book. Thank you, Public Affairs, for the opportunity to read and review this novel early.

The FBI planned and ran its own encrypted cell phone company to lure in criminals. The premise sounds almost too outlandish for fiction, but it’s all true. Joseph Cox weaves a fine tale of police intrigue that spans multiple continents and countries. The names and places can get a bit overwhelming at times, but it is still a very worthwhile read. Highly recommended. Thanks to PublicAffairs and NetGalley for an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Dark Wire is a fast-paced read into the dark world where drugs, law enforcement and technology collide. It’s a world you never see, but should definitely think about.

Dark Wire
Joseph Cox


I admit, I am a sucker for true-crime stories, especially one where the good guys win. Dark War was a hit with me. It was a fun read about a topic I enjoy.

=== The Good Stuff ===
* I don’t like to spoil a book for any potential reader, but suffice it to say it is a story that, if it were fiction, would be accused of being unrealistic. It tracks an FBI sting operation that become bigger and more successful that anyone would have ever imagined.
* Joseph Cox does a great job in telling the story. The book is easy to read, full of just the right amount of detail and avoids getting caught up in trivia or details that do not advance the story. Rather that trying to relate everything that happens, the author pick and stays with a few threads throughout the book.
* It is tough to tell from the draft version I was reading, but everything seems well referenced.
* Cox captures a few dimension of the story. You can see the difficulties, both legal and technical, that a US law enforcement agency faces in setting up an operation of this type. There is a feel of a “tech startup” as the sting grows, and finally a sense of the accomplishment and pride the members of the team felt in conning some of the world’s more cunning criminals.

=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===
* You can almost feel the author struggling with how much detail to include and edit out. I would have been interested in more technical detail, but I am sure other readers would have wanted more details on the international legal and law enforcement aspects. It is simply too complex a story to please every possible reader-without writing a 900 page doorstop.

== Summary ===
I enjoyed the book, both the topic and the way it was told. Cox captures just enough of the personal and technical sides of the story, without getting bogged down in trivia and needless detail. I would have liked the book to be another 100 pages or so, but understand that sometimes less is more.
I’d definitely recommend this book to fans of true-crime and law enforcement, and it would almost stand-alone as a business book on technical startups!

Fascinating story. The global networking among law enforcement officers depicted was noteworthy, as were the trends in organized crime. Both enabled by information technology. Cox’s work is investigative journalism at its best.

Wow! Criminals beware! The author gives an insider look to one of the biggest investigations into the workings of the criminal underworld.
I would think that most people, through their television/movie watching habits, know that the "bad guys" do a lot of their misdeeds utilizing the phone. Or, they did until wiretaps came into play. How would they plan crimes without being able to trust their phone? Enter the phenomenon of encrypted phones. Entirely (almost) secure messages could now be exchanged without the worry of prying eyes. Drug dealer, arms dealer, crooks worldwide jumped on the bandwagon.
Through the encrypted phone companies use of basing business in other countries, law enforcement found themselves unable to crack the encryption. The companies even offered a "panic button" that would totally erase all of the messages if the phone came into the law's hands.
Enter the author. Along with his partners in the FBI, they too found themselves stymied. BUT....they came up with an ingenious idea. What would happen if they (FBI) created their own encrypted phone company? One that offered even more features and security than the other companies. So they set about doing just that. Together with a cooperating witness, who was the front man to run the company, along with some (in my opinion) conveniently occurring crashes/lawsuits/raids that shut down the other companies, they created the gold standard of encrypted phones. And to top it all off, they got the criminals (unknowingly) to distribute the phones amongst themselves!
But unknown to the criminals, the Americans, British, Australian, and many other countries law enforcement agencies could read every single one of the messages! Genius!
The criminal acts were being tracked and investigated worldwide. I found this part of the book to be fascinating. How they managed to keep the investigation secret, with no leaks, is incredible. At the end, they were tracking 100,000 criminals!
The investigation grew and grew, becoming too complex to keep going. At the end, multiple countries law enforcement agencies conducted raids simultaneously worldwide, arresting thousand of criminals!
This was an exciting book to read. With one exception. Completely uncontrollable by the author. Due to resistance in the upper layers of the Department of Justice (afraid if something went wrong, they would be blamed, and hurt their careers), the phones were not allowed to be tracked in the United States. I understand the argument for civil liberties and such, however, to me the rights of the citizens being exploited by the criminals and the poison they sell, should take precedence over the rights of the criminals. They could have at least tried, and if the courts eventually threw out the cases, at least we got the drugs off the street. Ahh, my career law enforcement tendencies are showing through!
I encourage you to give this book a try. Maybe it will help change things. OR....maybe the authorities already have another investigation going now. Criminals should be looking over their shoulders!