Interviews and court records hint at how federal agents capped a sprawling, six-year investigation that spanned five continents, 15 countries, involved James Bond-style gadgets, a mystery man and cocaine smuggled in banana boxes aboard foreign freighters.
The information is emerging 10 months after the arrest of Ylli Didani and reveal how prosecutors are coordinating a global hunt for evidence and securing assistance from foreign officials to help ensure the accused drug trafficker does not escape prosecution.
Court records allege Didani, 44, reaped more than $111.5 million and oversaw his drug empire by using the encrypted messaging app Sky ECC. Messages were supposed to self-destruct but federal investigators have obtained photographs of Sky ECC text messages exchanged among Didani and co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
Those messages include chats about money laundering and drug trafficking. Federal agents also are trying to get access to thousands of Sky ECC communications involving Didani that were recovered in France and are awaiting help from officials in foreign countries that factor into the investigation.
“Ylli is a family man who is presumed innocent,” his defense lawyer, Wade Fink, told The News. “Remember, it is always easier for prosecutors to make allegations on paper than it is to substantiate and prove those allegations in a courtroom. And it is there, in a court of law, where we will defend our client.”
Prosecutors say Didani’s drug ring was operating in Metro Detroit since at least August 2016 and had ties in 14 other countries. Those are: Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada, Chile, Albania, Turkey, Brazil, Germany, Dominican Republic, United Arab Emirates, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands.
The drug ring was generating vast sums of money by summer 2016, prosecutors say. Didani texted messages discussing the need to find someone to help discreetly transfer $111.5 million from Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, to a bank in Dubai, according to Brandon Leach, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer.
In recent weeks, prosecutors have provided new details about a trail of evidence they say links Didani to drug dealing.
Investigators discovered Didani and unnamed co-conspirators used cellphones encrypted with software provided by Sky Global, a Canadian communications network and service provider, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy McDonald and Mark Bilkovic wrote in a court filing.
Sky Global invented the Sky ECC app used on about 171,000 phones around the world.
Didani used phones equipped with the app to coordinate “large cocaine shipments and the return of narcotics proceeds,” the prosecutors wrote.
His alleged drug ring ran into problems in 2019 and 2020, prosecutors said. Investigators seized more than 3,400 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $100 million, including cocaine hidden in a banana cargo ship in the Netherlands.
Prosecutors hint at one possible reason for disruptions to the cocaine pipeline.
Since 2016, federal agents have obtained photographs of Sky ECC texts from Didani and co-conspirators, “including messages discussing drug trafficking and money laundering,” prosecutors wrote in a filing.
Justice Department officials have made an official request to counterparts in France to obtain Sky ECC messages seized by investigators in Europe.
The government’s filing does not reveal how the messages were seized.
But in early March 2021, police officials in France, Belgium and the Netherlands shut down the network after hacking into Sky ECC.
The shutdown coincided with the arrests of at least 80 people and hundreds of raids across Europe. During a two-year investigation, law enforcement officials intercepted 1 billion messages and seized more than 17 tons of cocaine.
Three weeks after the Sky ECC shutdown, Didani was arrested at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, N.C. As investigators took him into custody, they seized a $3,200, 18-karat gold, black-and-clear, diamond bracelet and $12,000 stainless steel, ceramic Rolex Yacht-Master II watch.
Last week, prosecutors wrote in a court filing that Sky ECC messages seized by French authorities may be available within a month. The government could be prepared to prosecute Didani in about three months.
The shutdown of Sky ECC, meanwhile, comes amid concerns from civil liberties groups about the unregulated subversion of secure communication technology.
“Americans have very few protections from surveillance by foreign governments,” said Jennifer Stisa Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
Prosecutors also disclosed they plan to file at least one new charge against Didani — conspiracy to distribute drugs aboard a ship that is subject to U.S. drug laws. He is being held at a federal detention center in Milan, an hour southwest of Detroit, and awaiting trial on a drug conspiracy charge that could send him to prison for up to life.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit needs the consent of leaders in several countries where investigators raided ships and seized cocaine.
That includes Portugal, where the container ship MSC Jenny is registered. Investigators seized 1,100 kilograms of cocaine aboard the ship during a search in Bilbao, Spain, in April 2020.
Similar requests for countries to consent or waive objection to the enforcement of U.S. laws aboard ships registered in foreign nations are pending in Germany and Singapore and have been finalized in Liberia and Malta.
The investigation has focused on the drug ring’s expansion plans.
In summer 2018, prosecutors say Didani and his financier, Marty Tibbitts, a telecommunications CEO from Grosse Pointe Park, were building a submarine designed to attach itself via magnets to ocean freighters, according to the government.
Tibbitts, chief executive of Harper Woods-based Clementine Live Answering Service, was well-known within the local business community and among the nation’s vintage military airplane enthusiasts.
Prosecutors say Tibbitts, who lived in a 12,000-square-foot, $6.4 million mansion once owned by Alto Reed, saxophonist for Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, was secretly financing Didani’s drug ring.
Tibbitts, 50, was killed in a plane crash in July 2018 that halted the development of the submarine, the DEA task force officer wrote. He was never charged with a crime before the crash.
The sub was designed to use an underwater modem that would communicate with a remote operator who could track the drone’s location via an onboard GPS device, the government alleged.
“The drone was intended to be remotely operated and could release from the vessel at the request of the operator and would send up a GPS location beacon to identify its current location,” the officer wrote in the criminal case against Didani.
The drug ring would be able to dispatch a fishing boat to the torpedo’s location, up to 100 miles off the coast of Europe.
Didani and Tibbitts called the drone “The Torpedo.”
Investigators intercepted communications between Tibbitts and Didani from May 2016 through June 2018 that indicate a company was hired to build a prototype of the submarine.
Investigators say Tibbitts, who is referred to in court filings as co-conspirator 2 or CC-2, financed bulk quantities of cocaine in South America. Though court records do not name Tibbitts, The News confirmed his identity. Electronic records and documents show Tibbitts “had in-depth knowledge of the workings of the organization,” the officer wrote.
After Tibbitts died, Didani flew from the U.S. to Albania, Spain, the Netherlands, Dubai, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador in search of a new financier, investigators said.
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