The Fraudsters’ Misguided Bet on Encrypted Phones

Drug syndicates and other criminal groups bought into the idea that a new kind of phone network couldn’t be infiltrated by cops. They were wrong—big time, writes Ed Caesar.

In 1895, a police officer in Manhattan who had once worked for a telephone company, and whose name has been lost to history, suggested adding a hidden circuit to lines used by known criminals: a wiretap. The city’s mayor, William L. Strong,...