ANOM: An American honeypot
on Lithuanian server before German courts

ANOM was an FBI-controlled crypto messaging service distributed to criminals worldwide via supposedly secure cell phones. The goal from the outset was to allow criminals—primarily those involved in organized crime, especially international drug trafficking—to communicate via the devices and later convict them using the content of the communications. Users believed they could communicate in encrypted form—but in fact, US authorities were reading all messages from the very beginning. US authorities deliberately used a server in the European Union, specifically in Lithuania, to circumvent prohibitions on use under US law.

ANOM differed fundamentally from the well-known crypto messaging services EncroChat and SkyECC. These were indeed encrypted services that were initially protected from government access. Only through hacks or infiltration did European investigators gain access to the systems and the content contained therein. Therefore, the previous case law regarding EncroChat and SkyECC and the handling of these data cannot simply be applied to the handling of ANOM data, which was obtained by completely different means. Furthermore, it was transmitted to Germany not from EU member states, but from the USA.

However, case law in Germany generally considers the data obtained from ANOM to be usable – as long as there is no clear indication that the data was obtained abroad in violation of minimum constitutional standards. In its ruling of January 1, 2025 (case no. 1 StR 54/24), the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the data may be used in proceedings based on suspicion of drug trafficking. The Federal Constitutional Court also confirmed this view in its ruling of September 23, 2025 (case no. 2 BvR 625/25).

However, recent revelations indicate that Lithuanian judges were deliberately deceived by US authorities. If the court order required for the surveillance measure was obtained in this way, the data collection was clearly carried out in violation of the rule of law. The Hamburg public prosecutor's office—and we, too, in various files concerning the drug trafficking allegation—currently has the first ANOM data sets; the analysis of the obtained chat logs and associated metadata is ongoing.