Vincent Ramos, the now 46-year-old former CEO of encrypted phone firm Phantom Secure, was freed from U.S. federal prison on Wednesday. His release comes after spending around five years in prison for running a company that sold encrypted phones to serious organized criminals around the world, including the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Ramos’ case was significant both in that it was the first time the U.S. treated an encrypted phone company as a criminal entity in its own right, and that it was one of the first dominoes in a long track that culminated in the FBI secretly running its own backdoored encrypted phone called Anom.
On Wednesday Victor Sherman, one of Ramos’ attorneys, told 404 Media in an email that once released Ramos is a “free man pending deportation to Canada.” The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) website says that Ramos was no longer in BOP custody as of Wednesday.
Recently in a prison phone call, Ramos told 404 Media he was looking forward to seeing his family after being released.