Court rules police misled court in Anom phone sting operation, but evidence still allowed

The Eastern Finland Court of Appeal has ruled that Lithuanian police intentionally misled a court in order to obtain permission for a covert operation linked to the encrypted Anom phone network, Yle reports. The court described the deception as a “very serious” violation of legal procedure but did not order the exclusion of the communications as evidence.

Yle’s investigative unit MOT revealed last year that the approval for the undercover operation had been obtained by misleading a Lithuanian court. The Anom phones, developed by the FBI and placed on the criminal market, were used to surveil encrypted conversations among organised crime figures, leading to seizures and arrests in Finland and internationally.

The decision, handed down on Wednesday, concerns only one branch of the multiple ongoing Anom-related court cases in Finland. The defendant in this case, Esko Eklund, a former president of the Cannonball motorcycle club, was convicted of aggravated drug offences and aggravated firearms offences and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He was arrested in Iraq in 2024 and extradited to Finland in 2025. The court upheld the earlier ruling of the Päijät-Häme District Court.

The appellate court stated that while the misleading of the Lithuanian court was serious, it did not justify banning the use of the Anom messages because the FBI surveillance was targeted at criminals rather than indiscriminate mass surveillance. The main Anom case, which includes the defence’s demand for evidence exclusion, is being handled by the Helsinki Court of Appeal, which is expected to deliver its verdict by the end of June.