Hello and welcome to Business Weekly with Lucy Burton.

On the show today, we'll start by taking a look at crime and technology.

Earlier this week, the FBI, in conjunction with the Australians,

used an encrypted messaging app to swoop in and arrest more than 800 suspected

criminals. They were able to crack global organised crime groups by running their own messaging

service, putting it on bespoke phones and handing them out through undercover offices to the

criminals themselves. We'll hear more about how it all worked in just a

moment. And then we'll look at the booming business of ransomware. Hackers are making millions

from demanding Bitcoin payments from companies. So how can this new kind of cyber warfare be

stopped? Sticking with tech, we'll hear why Nigeria has banned Twitter, and no prizes for

guessing which former US president has applauded the move. And we'll get the story of the Chinese

immigrant who's living the American dream. First, most school kids know the story of the Trojan horse,

where the Greek hero Odysseus, tired of fighting against the Trojans,

sends in a giant horse as a so-called present to the embattled city. But in the dead of night,

a band of Greeks sneak out of the horse's belly and surprise and capture the city. Fast forward a few

thousand years, and the FBI launched a sting that would have made the cunning Odysseus proud.

By sneaking encrypted phones to criminal gangs, they were able to monitor millions of incriminating messages,

which discussed money laundering, drug smuggling and murder.

Here's FBI special agent, Suzanne Turner, describing the operation.

In the time the FBI's a non-platform has been up and running since October of 2019 till now,

we have had more than 12,000 devices sending more than 27 million messages across more than

100 countries and over 45 different languages.

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