Angry Planet - Why Criminals Post Evidence on Instagram

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Instagram is a world of influencers, models, bizarre ads and aspirational living. It’s a place where artists share their work and people go to see and be seen. It’s also the epicenter of gang violence in America and, increasingly, an important resource for law enforcement looking to solve murders and disrupt street violence. Read the charging documents or warrants of a gang-violence related case and you’ll be confronted by a wealth of Instagram posts.Why?With us today is Danny Gold. Gold—a returning guest—is a writer and producer who focuses on crime and conflict. He’s also a reluctant podcaster who co-hosts the excellent Underworld Podcast.The Underworld Podcast.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world of their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I am Matthew Galt. And I'm Jason Fields. Instagram is a world of influencers, models, bizarre ads, and aspirational living. It's a place where artists share their work and people go to sea and be seen. It's also the epicenter of gang violence in America and increasingly an important resource for law enforcement looking to solve murders and disrupt street violence. Read the charging documents or warrants of a gang violence-related case and you'll be confronted by a wealth of Instagram posts. Why? With us today is Danny Gold.

Gold, returning guest, is a writer and producer who focuses on crime and conflict. He's also a reluctant podcaster who co-hosts the excellent underworld podcast. Danny, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, you guys for having me. Really appreciate it. All right. So in your work covering gang violence, how much do you use social media to help you figure out what's going on? So, you know, I don't look at Instagram, YouTube and all that as the best way to get the background of a situation, situation.

right and to come to a total understanding. But you can see conflict between gangs, stuff like that, play out on there. You know, it's going to be maybe in coded language you don't understand. You might not know why these things are kicking off. I don't think it necessarily starts there, but it definitely facilitates it. And just people are way, way too poor with their obsec. Like they will be putting stuff out there. Like you said, will be used in charging documents.

Direct threats against enemies that are, you know, going to be seen by anyone who loads up YouTube and knows where to search or Instagram. It's not that hard to do. I have used it and I'm giving out a reporter trick here. But, you know, I, when I did this documentary in St. Louis, I've talked about on the podcast and that was dealing with gang violence there a lot. You know, one of the easiest ways I found to make inroads in communities that are that are participating or suffering from gang violence is to find people in the local rapsum. And I've done that through YouTube, through Instagram, you know, start hitting them up being like, hey, do you guys want to talk? You know, I'm looking into this. I'm looking into that. Usually if it's a relatively small time player in this scene, they're going to be up for a conversation. Well, not usually. You know, I, it's like one of every 10 people you reach out to is willing to talk and maybe introduce you around to some folks. And that's how I've made some great sources is doing stuff like that. Yeah, it's funny. The increasingly I feel like a lot of, especially looking for sources and kind of tracking their history, social media has become so important for journalists. Even, again, giving out reporter secrets, even like LinkedIn is such a huge deal.

Yeah. You can learn so much about people on LinkedIn. But anyway, where, which sites are people using? Like, where is this stuff happening? Is it just Instagram? I mean, Instagram and YouTube, I'd say, would be the big ones that I've noticed where you can just get a lot of information. I mean, there are people whose entire reporting careers now are based off of essentially,

I guess Facebook, two in foreign countries would be big, but trolling these websites. And I'm not just talking about gang violence. I'm talking about, you know, ethnic cleansing situations, cartels, obviously, gangs. It's not just, you know, I don't want to portray it as it's just, you know, kids in street gangs in Chicago or in Brooklyn or in St. Louis using this, right? You have Albanian gangs in London that are, you know, putting stuff up on YouTube or Instagram that no one who wants to stay at a prison should do. You know, you have cartel members. I guess they have to, they probably fear prosecutorial sort of attention a lot less than people in the U.S.

But, you know, they're putting stuff up there too. Even you go back and you look at Facebook and WhatsApp and Myanmar, you know, there's ethnic cleansing that was precipitated through that. And I mean, that's a fact. That's a known thing. I know people that have met with high-level Facebook officials to warn them about this. I think it's in Shira Franco's new book. They talk about this a bit. But, you know, this isn't just a thing that street gangs are putting their crimes out there for the world to see.

It's sort of all over. Right. And, you know, you have places like Belling Cat that are watching all this stuff and using it to document war. crimes in Syria, right? Because people are putting up their ethnic cleansing on YouTube and other sites. May not live there for very long, but the evidence is there, however briefly. It, like, why? Why do people do this? I, you know, I ask myself that question a lot. I think, you know, it could be any number of reasons, right? Everyone's going to have their own personal motivations. I think with cartels doing it, a lot of them are doing it to instill fear, to sort of

want up their enemies because they don't fear any sort of criminal justice situations. Why are these younger the 15 and 16 year old kids doing it? I mean, clout is like a big thing. It's an unfortunate reality, but people are doing it to sort of show that they're in charge, bravado. I mean, it's a, you know, when you're talking about young men, male teenagers 16, 17, around the world do a lot of dumb stuff for attention, for bravado reasons, for things like that.

And that's a very real reality with kids. in gangs. You know, it's not just 16-year-old kids in gangs they're doing, but 16-year-old kids all over. Just when you're living that gang life, it's going to involve violence. It's going to involve guns. It's going to develop all things in that nature. It's going to involve you trying to one-up, you know, your ops, your enemies, things like that. It's just, uh, and, you know, they want to generate content. Don't we all just want to generate content and have it lead to things? I mean, they're doing the same stuff, you know? And if I can point out, I always like to take everything back to the Holocaust, if possible. The Nazis actually took lots of pictures of some of their

crimes, including shooting people in front of ditches and, you know, and there were this fantastic album, people who worked in Auschwitz just hanging out and partying nearby. So apparently it's just something people do. It's not a new phenomenon in any way. It's just the outlet and the end of how much easier it is to do right now. You know, if you want to do this 20 years ago, you have to go get a little, uh, Insta camera from, I don't know, from CBS, take photos, go get it developed, you know, you got your phone on you at all times. And, you know, I don't think, especially when it comes to the younger teams that are doing it, I don't think they're thinking long-term.

They're not thinking of evidence that they're providing. You know, that's like we have, you know, our podcast corny catchphrase, which is don't Instagram your crimes. T-shirts available. But it's true.

So many cases these days are built off people who are literally putting up evidence of felonies on Instagram, on YouTube, and on Facebook. And people are making cases off it. Like, you know,

we have this sort of old running gags, about these cops in New York who are like, you know, your middle-aged Irish and Italian cops who now have to like learn how to use Instagram and, you know, used to banging down doors and whatever else. And now they're monitoring or pretending to be some like 17-year-old girl so they can like friend people on Instagram that are putting up, you know, their gang members that that they're affiliated with. And that's- Can you describe some of the posts in like how is there, and is there an aesthetic difference between like what a cartel member posts and what somebody in, say, St. Louis posts?

I mean, the cartel members are putting up stuff where they're, they're, like, really rolling around with heavy-duty weapons, where they're shooting people, bodies, things like that. So the cartel members are putting it up to a degree that's just, you know, to the 10th exponent of whatever the kids in Chicago or New York, whatever, are putting up. They're putting up, you know, you will see posts of guns and things like that, especially in cities where they're legal. New York, it's a little less. You know, people have kind of wizened up a bit about that.

you know callouts of opponents or people they want to hurt i've kind of had it i was actually just on the phone with a with a friend in st louis who's involved in this world and he was like look it doesn't start on instagram but it just exacerbates it to like the a millionth degree right everyone people know who their enemies are in this world before social media this just gives you an opportunity you know you're not running into them on the street anymore you know it used to have to be you crossed someone's territory, you ran to them in the street. That's how an argument would precipitate or that's how some sort of action will precipitate. Now you can just be in your bedroom talking shit on Facebook comments, on Instagram comments. I mean, he was telling me wild stories of

you know, I interviewed this rapper. We didn't use him the piece of guy, a MR. D. Huncho, a St. Louis guy who got shot like five times in July. He was on live when it happened. He was telling me another story of one of his homies that was shot on live. Like he was, the guy was on live, shot a couple days ago. So you see stuff like that. You see a lot of stuff with, you know, bragging about money, you know, stacks of money. And like, I talk to these kids. I'm like, stop doing that. Like if people see, you know the world you're living on. If people see you holding thousands of dollars in your pockets and then you put your house up there, you put your car up there, if you're on live doing it. Like things are going to, look, 99% of the time, maybe you're fine.

But, but that's, you know, you're making yourself a walking target. Maybe you're a target already. But like, maybe people forget and then they're scrolling through and they see you holding $40,000. You know, I'm just saying it doesn't take much sometimes for someone to get the motivation to do something in that world. Well, and that's happened before, too. There's famous cases recently of like, of rappers, I think specifically putting up, you know, bling and stacks of cash and then criminals like, all right, well, we know where they are. We know what they've got. So we'll go take care of that.

Yeah. Yeah. I try to warn these kids and it doesn't take. And it's just like it's worrying. Like I worry about them doing this sort of stuff. But as for the motivation, the reasons for it, look, I'm sure there's tons of papers written on these sort of issues, why kids belong to gangs in the first place, why they feel the need to show bravado.

I mean, that's a lot deeper than I think I can go right now. But for the service level reasons, it just doesn't make sense. I guess it does make sense, but it's just stupid. Sorry, let me correct myself. Does it also work like putting heads up on Pikes? I mean, is that part of what this is all about? Is that why, is that part of how they use Instagram? Yeah, I mean, for sure.

Like, if you look at it, you know, I haven't done any original reporting on it, but I've been paying attention to this Jacksonville beef between these rappers and Jacksonville where they're making songs about the people that they've killed, you know? And then like that, you know, but that's going to get them attention. that's going to get them cloud. I mean, if you look at like Takashi, right? Half the reason he blew up in the first place was because he was able to get co-signed by like by Bloods and obviously it didn't work out too well for him.

But like, you know, that is unfortunately a part of the game, especially when it comes to to rap. And I just sound like C. Dolores Tucker. But, you know, that is an issue too. It's really blending in a lot now with with the drill scene and with that sort of stuff in cities like Chicago, New York, especially. Brooklyn, St. Louis, I mean, Cleveland, Jacksonville, you know, there is this intertwining in a way that it wasn't 30 years ago. You know, I saw like an older guy who had been in the rap game and

in the sort of gang game, it was 50 years old now, talking about how like these days it's, it's more out of control that it was back then because back then a lot of these guys were faking. These kids now, look, they might make terrible music and have dumb face tattoos, but they really are shooting people in the streets over, like, through music. Like that's a part of it. And I hate to sort of, you know, I'm not trying to establish a puritanical view on these things, but it is a reality and people don't want to address it. There's that famous song about, it's like C.W Nelly, about shooting his friend by accident. YW. Yeah, YWM. YM. YM. W. Mely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think he made the song before that

happened. I think. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure. He made the song and then actually did the thing in the song that he, that he was singing about. Yeah. Yeah. He's serving time right now. I think he's, I don't know if he was, was he, I think he might have been convicted. I'm not sure. I didn't follow the case too closely, but I'm pretty sure that he is convicted. Yeah. He's actually pretty, I wrote him off right away off the bat just by looking at him, but he's a pretty talented musician. Like I think, I think he's, he's fundamentally like very talent. It's a giant waste of talent. I'll just say that. It's a good song. That's the, that's one of the horrible parts about it. He has a song, Mama Cry about serving like a like a 200 day sentence. That's a, it's a good. It's a good. It's a good. He has a song, like a. Like a two hundred day sentence. That's. That's. That's. That's. It's. It's a. It's a. It's It's like a beautiful, heart-wrenching song with an amazing video. I would recommend people. I tried to license it for like a short documentary that I made, but that didn't work out. But it's incredible song. But anyway, sorry.

This gets to one of the things like a central tension in my own like intellectual life where I wonder, I'm not one of those people that thinks that art inspires violence. But I also think that we fundamentally believe that art can change minds. and inspire us, but when we think about it inspiring violence or causing violence, we balk. I think it's complicated. There's a complicated connection there. Do you think that any of this stuff that's happening on Instagram or social media is amping up the violence in any way or making it worse? You know, the first thing you said is a debate that I've been having with myself a lot the past couple years as I've been paying attention to this more and more.

because I know that like, you know, I am a 38-year-old, mostly law-abiding citizen who is not a part of these worlds. And I know when I'm listening to them stuff, when I'm getting anted up to go to the gym, like, I'm getting amped up, you know? And I'm not like a hyper-impressional 15-year-old kid who's in a violent world to start with. So, yeah, I'm sort of where you are. You know, I'm really torn by what I now believe because I do think it's having an impact. I do think some of this stuff, like especially when it comes to drill stuff. And I hate to say it because like I said, I don't want to sound like see Dolores Tucker, but I do think it is having an impact and it is exacerbating it. Now when it comes to social media, for sure, it's exacerbating it. For sure.

Like, I'm not saying there's fundamental reasons why, you know, there's violence in general in communities, right? I think poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of choices. I am not trying to say that Instagram contributes like any of those factors do. Certainly does not. But when it comes to exacerbating it 100%. Like it is just, you know, it's real. People are, like my, like, you know, the guy I was talking who said, people already know their enemies. But if you have 24 hour access, 24 hour access to talk shit to your enemy, to call them out on things, to one up them, you know, what's that going to lead to? Now, obviously not every shit talking post is going to lead to violence, but it's definitely going to, going to precipitate it in a certain way. And you can see,

I mean, there's local media that have done these, these sort of reports. whether it's in West Philadelphia, Cleveland, Jacksonville, St. Louis, that talk about how, like, these threats are being made and sometimes carried out after being posted on social media. Or, you know, gang violence, things are kicking off because of people talking shit on social media. Again, the violence is already there to a degree, and the rivalry is already there. But you're giving a forum that's completely unregulated for 24 hours, seven days a week, for people who are already engaged in beefs to go at each other. It's going to have negative consequences.

I have a question speaking as the oldest white man on this show. What does this mean to me? I mean, is this just all inter-gang rivalries? Is this, I mean, does this make the world more dangerous beyond that community? No, I mean, that's the important. How do you make me scared? Yeah, I mean, that's the unfortunate thing. Like, for our day-to-day lives, I mean, like in my neighborhood, it's rapidly genifying,

but occasionally things kick off. And I know a lot of shit talking goes down on social media. But for the most part, no, this is affecting pockets of communities where there already is violence, where people are already marginalized where they don't have resources. And it's just making life deadlier there. That it has to be. Look at the murder rate. You know, again, I'm not saying this is the reason the murder rate is sky high right now.

Even though I think it's gone down. Last year was sky high. This year, it's down a bit. But it's definitely contributing to it. again, I want to be clear, too, this isn't just a phenomenon that's happening to street gangs in inner cities in America, right? Cartels, MS-13, like I said, Albanian gang, the Albanians have tons of music videos up there where they're bragging about their crimes.

You know, this isn't, I don't want to implicate, you know, street gang culture as being the only ones that are guilty of this. It's happening all over the world. And regimes, governments are doing it, you know? So I just want to be very clear about that. but this phenomenon that's happening here is, yeah, I don't know. I don't think there is anything to be scared of, unfortunately. You know, and that's why maybe it's not getting all the attention that it should be getting,

because it's affecting part of the population. I think some people have given up on already. There is an amazing world of Azure Bayouin has some amazing ones of state-created music video disc tracks that are like very, militant and are aimed at, it's an amped up expensive a version of this, I think. And this all kind of is this expression of what I see as is like these cycles of violence and reprisal that I think fuels a lot of this stuff. I also think about obviously very different back then, but like the troubles in Ireland. Like I can't imagine, like, can you imagine what the

world would have been like if, you know, the IRA had Instagram instead of just the size of buildings to paint murals on. Can you kind of talk about like what these cycles of violence are and how like Instagram kind of fuels it? Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a huge part of it, right? And I have this scene in this documentary I did in St. Louis. I'm talking to this, this, well, a friend and now this guy Lyndon who is a crib. And we're sort of talking about how just the gang violence just keeps going, you know?

I'm like, well, you know, don't you think that if you guys decide to not shoot one of them back, maybe the cycle will stop? And he's like, yeah, but when you're in it, you're not thinking about it. And you're thinking about protecting your people. You're thinking about getting revenge for your friend. And, you know, I ask him, on point of like, doesn't that mean it's never going to stop? He's like, yeah, we're just going to, it's just going to keep going. You kill him. I kill you back and forth, back and forth until there's none of us left.

And it's a dark moment. But that's a big part of what's fueling gang violence is the back and forth in the back and forth. And of course, the shit talking and the bragging on killing somebody, is going to exacerbate that, right? It is going to make it so maybe someone feels like they don't have enough unless they, except for getting revenge. And that's a big, I mean, again, I'm an outsider looking in for this Jacksonville story,

but I think that's a big one too. If you look at them bragging about killing or even bragging about all the people they've killed in this beef. I mean, I think a bunch of those guys are starting to get arrested now, but it's wild what people are being put out there. And again, if you're a regime, if you're a cartel member, you don't have to worry about creating evidence for the most part. These guys should be worried about all the evidence they're literally putting out there, you know?

Yeah, that's a big part of what baffles me here. And it's really sad watching some of the videos where it reminds me of like when I was a kid and I would believe that like, all right, you know, if I just, if, you know, if I ask them if they're a cop, they have to tell me that they're a cop. There's a lot of like that kind of shit going on in the videos where they're like, they change the name of things. And they say, like, well, off camera, I have, you know, this part of a gun, but I'm not going to show it to you because if I show it to you, then it's a felony. And like, guys, come on. Like, is there, you know, how does, have you talked to law enforcement

about this? Do they, they obviously know that this is a big resource for them and almost a boon for them. How do they feel about it? Oh, yeah. I mean, this is how they build cases. You know, they're, they're, I haven't had them say. this to me directly, but I assume they're thrilled. How much easier does that make your job if you're a detective? And people are literally stating the people that they've murdered on camera for you to look into. Like, you're posting up guns. If you're posting up cash, too, I think law enforcement that's deep involved in these things, they're going to start asking questions about, where'd you get that cash? You know, you're making yourself a target and you're doing the work of the police,

you're doing it for them, right? You're making their lives easier. Now, I'm sure some of them missed the actual days of like banging down doors and actually building real cases off of non-social media. But I think for the most part, it's making their job in incredibly, not incredibly easy, but it's making their job easier in a way. And I think they're also just sort of like flabbergasted by just like, why are you doing this? Why are you giving me all the evidence that I need? Because they're stupid. I mean, what are the things that's really key to police work? And I'm not like just saying this off the top of my head. I mean, you know, Cops have said it. It's on TV. Police work only works at all because criminals are stupid.

I mean, you know, that's actually how most people get caught. They forget something. They do something dumb. They, you know, I think go on social media and think it's more important to have their following, I guess, than it is to, I don't know, not go to jail. Look, you know, especially when it's kids that are like 15, 16, 7. I don't want to be too judgmental. I'm sure of social. media was around when I was that age, I would have put a lot of dumb shit up there as well. I'm really glad it wasn't around when I was that age. You know, there definitely probably some early Facebook wallposts back in like 2004, 2005. I'm glad it don't exist anymore. But yeah, look, it's not a smart thing to do, but we also have to think about 15 and 16

year old kids without guidance who by nature are just like, and by nature, I mean, all 16 year olds are super impulsive. You know, their brains. I don't know the science, man. I'm just talking nonsense. But you know what I mean? Their brains aren't fully formed, right? You're not, that's why teenagers do so much dumb shit.

And I'm not trying to rationalize literally committing crimes on Instagram. But at the same time, it's like, there's a small part of me, a small part of me that gets it. Well, we also, we had the luxury of growing up in a world where this stuff wasn't around. Right. And this is, you know, we, we like to talk about how, like, you know, Twitter isn't real life. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, to a lot of people, this stuff very much is real life. it is a fundamental part of what it means to be a social human in the year 2021.

Yeah. No matter how much we hate it. And so you are living part of your life in this digital realm. You know, so it's hard to just walk away from that, especially when all of your peers are there and it's just what the done thing, your culture does, you know. Yeah. 100%. It's a great way of putting it. Well, it's like the way the world was, frankly, but more so.

It's all amplified. Yes. I mean, you know, people did a lot of really stupid things and sometimes they get caught. I mean, let's go like all the way back to the dark ages when Bill Clinton, you know, got caught out for smoking a joint. Of course, he said he didn't inhale. But, I mean, stuff from people's pasts always came up. It just was, you know, harder to find. And, you know, people have always been revealing themselves in some way or another, but it's amped up in a way that.

I don't think it's ever been before. We're all more public than we've ever been before. Yeah. I mean, even go, like, even if you want to look at the niche of the crime world, you know, New York Post, tabloid stuff, John Gotti, love being on camera and doing all that stuff. I mean, how many retired mafiosos now have podcasts or YouTube shows? I guess it's a little different because they're most likely not still committing crimes and talking about stuff they've done in the past.

But, like, you know, it seems like you go to prison. you do your time or you plead out or you snitch and then you come out and you become a YouTube guy or a podcast guy and they do numbers man who doesn't want to watch uh michael frenzzi or sammy the bull talk about you know what they did for for 20 years and people are fascinated by that stuff so you know like i find myself definitely being like why the hell of these kids doing this but then you look and you see middle-aged mobsters are doing it too and do you see that post from Hanrahan, there's militant Uzbek jihadists in Syria that are also hosting their own podcasts. I did see that. They've got way better equipment than I do. I think Jake made that joke as well.

Yeah, it's awful. Like, I wish I had a studio that looked that nice. Okay, so the other thing I want to ask is what is its Instagram and its parent company Facebook doing about all of this, if anything? Is there a stance there? Is it just, you know, let it go? What's going on? So, you know, I think when you look at, this is probably not one of their bigger problems, right? I mean, they had, the Myanmar thing is with the Rohingya is crazy. And I know people that had meetings with high-level Facebook officials and tried to warn them about it. And I don't think they got the response that they wanted. So, you know, we're talking about literal ethnic cleansing here, like state-sponsored massacre, stuff that's being exacerbated.

And they didn't do much. So I think with this, I also think, like, they probably don't know a lot of what it is or what's going on. Understanding the language itself is difficult for anyone, let alone some like 40-year-old Facebook executive. So I think they're probably not super aware of it now. I mean, I think there are, you've seen these charging documents, right? Where police are filing stuff with Instagram, with Facebook, or whatever, to get these, this information. And I think occasionally it's being brought to their attention. But I don't think it's one of their main concerns considering everything that's going on.

And again, like I, you know, I don't want to make excuses for them, but I don't envy them having to police all this stuff, right? How do they know what's going on on some kids live on the south side of Chicago when he's like making gang threats? You know, they don't, like, how can they keep up with this? It's, it's, it's tough. Like, I don't envy them. They're in, I don't envy them being in this position. Yeah, I don't think people understand, A, how much Facebook and Instagram is actually moderated into what that moderation looks like and how nightmarish it is for the people that are sitting and sifting through all of this stuff and deciding what can come down and what can't. Like there are, there is AI that regulates about 90%

of it, but a lot of times there has to be another human watching, you know, video of a child being murdered and has to decide if it's going to get pulled down or not. It's a huge task and they do spend a lot of considerable amount of time and money on it. What a lovely note to go out on the show. Let me, I do have one more question. Are they using Signal and Wire and other encrypted apps at all? Is there any kind of organization that's going on in more private settings? I think there are more organized groups that are using encrypted messaging. You know, there was that big bus in Europe and Australia.

They had developed their own sort of encryption. I'm sure you guys talked about that. Their own encrypted messaging app. I'm sure there are people that are using a signal. I'm sure there are street gangs that are using this stuff and doing it in a way that's more sophisticated. A lot of them aren't. And I'm surprised sometimes when I talk to people. Like I was talking to a cartel guy with a name, like not super high level, but a guy who was a name out there.

And we're talking over like a Facebook chat on like a video. And he's showing us guns and all that. Like there's very little obsec. I think it's maybe people think they're immune at this point. So it is, yeah, like they're there. I think there are definitely people that are using encrypted chatting and and being smart about it. There's definitely a lot of people who aren't, and there's definitely some high-level people that probably should that aren't. Yeah, I think that's important to note here for the criminals out there that, you know, looking at these charging documents and warrants, law enforcement goes to Instagram and asks for the records.

Instagram tends to give them the records. There doesn't seem to be a lot of pushback from Facebook, you know, giving over that stuff. They seem very, you know, ready to do it most of the time, right? Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to give, you know, when it comes to this sort of stuff, I don't think anyone's really fighting the privacy battle for street crews these days, you know? Like, I think it's one of those things where... How odd. Yeah, they're not going to get a ton of pushback on that. Yeah.

So, we're rewatching the wire in my house. And, you know, it just, it shows that law enforcement is always in the process of trying to catch up to criminals. And I was just thinking about, you know, what you were saying, Matthew, about stuff that is encrypted. I mean, there is undoubtedly, you know, Lester or McNulty somewhere desperately trying to figure out how to, you know, get through that encryption. Well, the brilliant thing they did is Danny kind of teased a moment ago in, is it Europe and Australia you said, where they set up like a fake signal style application and got a bunch of criminals to sign up for it. No, it was real. What they did is they found a guy who I think made a previous version of it. And I don't know what they had on him. They probably made it cut a deal with him or something like that where he would develop a new one and use the same networks to distribute these phones. And yeah, and then they did that and they just got, they built a ton of cases off it because these criminals were using it, not knowing that there was a backdoor that this guy built in, literally for the purpose of helping Interpol or these international organizations and national organizations.

crack down on crime. There's actually a show I've been watching, a nice gritty crime series called Macromafia about the gangs in Amsterdam. And that's a big part of it is them using this encrypted communication device. Danny Gold, thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this. The podcast is Underworld podcast, and it is excellent, and you should absolutely listen to it. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. That's all for this week. Angry Planet listeners. Angry Planet is me, Matthew. Hugh Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell. As always, you can find us on angryprinnet.substack.com, where for $9 a month you get access

to two bonus episodes every month and commercial-free versions of the show that you're listening to, it really does help us keep the show going. We're all very, very busy these days. We love to do this. It's very much a passion project for us, and every little bit helps us just keep production rolling. Again, that's at angryplanetpod.com or angry planet. substack.com. We will be back

next week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until one.