ICE Adds Rando To Group Chat, Exposes Investigation

Hey there, Joseph here with a really, really crazy one. Members of a law enforcement group chat including ICE added a random person, exposing really sensitive details about an active investigation. Obviously this is really similar to Signal Gate, where a Trump admin official added a journalist to their own group chat and discussed sensitive information. This is just the ICE equivalent.

Once again, New York readers: come to our second anniversary party next week! Free for subscribers ($20 everyone else)! Hang out with us and we'll record a pod too. Get your tickets here before they sell out.

Members of a law enforcement group chat including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies inadvertently added a random person to the group called “Mass Text” where they exposed highly sensitive information about an active search for a convicted attempted murderer seemingly marked for deportation, 404 Media has learned. 

The texts included an unredacted ICE “Field Operations Worksheet” that includes detailed information about the target they were looking for, and the texts showed ICE pulling data from a DMV and license plate readers (LPRs), according to screenshots of the chat obtained and verified by 404 Media. The person accidentally added to the group chat is not a law enforcement official or associated with the investigation in any way, and said they were added to it weeks ago and initially thought it was a series of spam messages.

SPONSORED

The YubiKey protects the personal and business applications and accounts that people and companies rely on every day, stopping AI-powered cyberattacks, online identity scams, fraud, and account takeovers. It provides powerful protection and it’s easy to use. Simply tap your YubiKey to log in securely to your accounts across all of your devices, from email and social media to gaming, crypto, and 1,000+ other accounts. YubiKey—the original passkey, still undefeated.  Learn more at yubico.com/404media For a limited time, get $10 off your order of exactly two keys from the YubiKey 5 Series or Security Key Series using the code “404media10” at checkout. Get $10 off here

The incident is a significant data breach and operational security failure for ICE, which has ramped up arrest efforts across the U.S. as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The breach also has startling similarities to so-called Signal Gate, in which a senior administration official added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to a group chat that contained likely classified information. These new ICE messages were MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service messages, meaning they weren’t end-to-end encrypted, like texts sent over Signal or WhatsApp are.

“Going to need to roll out at 1000,” one of the messages, sent at 09:25 a.m. on Wednesday to the group, called “Mass Text,” reads.

“Copy. We can break it down at 10,” comes the reply.

404 Media has verified that one of the members of the chat is an ICE official, and another appears to be from the U.S. Marshals Service.

The person accidentally added to the group chat, which appears to contain six people, said they had no idea why they had received these messages, and shared screenshots of the chat with 404 Media. 404 Media granted the person anonymity to protect them from retaliation.

“At first I thought it was just another series of spam messages like I get all the time from home improvement, car insurance , business loans, etc. Then I saw the rap sheet and license plate numbers and was like WTAF,” the person said in an online chat.

Screenshots of the messages. Redactions by 404 Media.

A DHS official not affiliated with the group chat told 404 Media, “This breach strikes me as indicative of the current carelessness of officers. They're concerned about pumping up arrest numbers, not about operating with the level of care and rigor we should expect from law enforcement officials.” 404 Media granted the source anonymity as they weren’t permitted to speak to the press.

404 Media only obtained text messages from the group sent on Wednesday and only learned of the issue at that time. They start early in the morning with one of the participants, which 404 Media has identified as an ICE official, sending a screenshot of the ICE field operations worksheet. This document names the target, lays out their criminal history, and includes personal information such as their Social Security Number, country of citizenship, and driver’s license number. 

The target is a person who was previously convicted of attempted murder according to the document, and a search of the ICE Online Detainee Locator System returned no results.

Nearly an hour later, another member of the group replies with a series of license plates. The name registered to that number matches that of a U.S. Marshals Criminal Investigator, according to a freely available phone lookup tool and LinkedIn searches.

Screenshots of the messages. Redactions by 404 Media.

“Running those plates,” the ICE officer then replies. “In the mean time he has two vehicles,” the ICE officer adds, before uploading two photos of car registration data which appear to come from a DMV; one of the photos shows a PDF filename which includes “DMV.” ICE is able to access DMV data in many circumstances. The respective DMV for the state this investigation took place in acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide a response in time for publication.

Immediately after, the ICE official wrote “no LPR hits since March.” LPR cameras are made by various companies and are stationed all across the United States. These cameras typically scan any vehicles driving by them, recording the vehicle’s license plate, model, and color, and makes a timestamped record of where that car, and by extension person, was. For example, more than 9,000 ICE agents had access to an LPR database run by Vigilant Solutions, according to records the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained in 2019. 404 Media also revealed that local police were tapping into Flock cameras on behalf of ICE and for immigration enforcement, sometimes in violation of the law.  

“It’s possible it’s still a connected address. Could be family. The last name matches the female co-reg on one of his vehicles,” the ICE official writes, appearing to refer to some of the data he’s pulled up.

“Copy,” another participant replies.

“Ok I’ll call you,” another says.

By the time the chat members say they’re going to “roll out at 1000,” appearing to mean they will move at 10am, the ICE official says “I’ll have someone sit and try and get a pattern of life/pid.” Pattern of life is a general term law enforcement and intelligence agencies sometimes use to describe where someone may live, go to work, or spend their time.

The source who was accidentally added to the group chat said they haven’t received any more messages since then.

Neither DHS or the U.S. Marshals Service responded to requests for comment.

Recently ICE officials have raided incorrect addresses; potentially violated court orders banning the agency from racial profiling people at Home Depots; detained U.S. citizens (including for days without water); and deported U.S. citizen children, one of which had cancer, with their families to Honduras, all while aggressively rounding up undocumented people many of whom have no criminal record and denying due process to some. Around half the people in ICE detention, nearly 30,000 people, do not have criminal records, according to the Deportation Data Project.

Previously senior administration officials gave ICE a quota of 3,000 arrests a day. The administration has since claimed that no such quota exists. 

With its new budget injection and overarching mass deportation goal, ICE is about to go on a social media ad recruiting blitz, 404 Media previously reported. On Tuesday DHS said it had received more than 100,000 applications for roles at ICE. At the end of July, the agency said it had issued more than 1,000 tentative job offers since July 4.