Legality of AFP's encrypted Trojan horse app AN0M likely to be challenged in High Court, prosecutor says

Christopher Mealey has pleaded not guilty to dealing with more than $1 million suspected of being the proceeds of crime. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)

A Commonwealth prosecutor has told a Newcastle judge he anticipates the legality of the AN0M encrypted app used by police to spy on alleged criminals will be challenged in Australia’s highest court.

In a three-year global collaboration between the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Operation Ironside used the encrypted messaging service AN0M to lure alleged criminals into revealing their secrets to police.

The AFP led the operation and sifted through around 19 million messages received through AN0M.

Police deliberately placed the encrypted messaging app in the hands of alleged criminals in 2018.

It is alleged black-market phones installed with the so-called Trojan horse app were being passed around the underworld from that time in the belief they were off the police radar.

In Australia, 251 people were charged after raids connected with the operation.

Trial delayed amid AN0M challenge

In June 2021, Hunter Valley man Christopher John Mealey was charged by Operation Ironside investigators, after the seizure of millions of dollars in cash, motorcycles, vehicles and designer handbags at a rural property near Cessnock.

Mr Mealey, 54, was charged with dealing with property reasonably suspected of being the proceeds of crime.

He was due to front a readiness hearing in Newcastle District Court today, ahead of a scheduled trial in August.

But today that trial date was vacated after Commonwealth Crown Prosecutor Connor McCraith said South Australia’s Court of Appeal had been asked to rule on the legality of the encrypted messaging app AN0M and the information intercepted by police.

“It involved an investigative method employed by the AFP — they distributed encrypted devices to various criminal networks and the accused, who used those while the AFP and others were watching those messages in real time,” Mr McCraith said.

“That is currently the subject of a lengthy inadmissibility challenge in South Australia.

“It is proposed that Mr Mealey may want to make a similar challenge, and potentially wants to challenge inadmissibility.

“A judgement has been reserved [in South Australia], and it is anticipated whatever way that goes, it will go to the High Court on whether the evidence is in or out.”

Judge Roy Ellis said he was “not 100 per cent” sure whether what happened in South Australia would be binding elsewhere.

“The reality is it falls classically within a matter that should be resolved by the High Court,” he said.

Defence solicitor Paul Williams said he intended to provide Mr Mealey with some “frank legal advice” ahead of his trial.

Judge Ellis set aside three weeks for the trial, from July 28 next year.