If you're looking for a good story to dig into on your commute home or the next paid bathroom visit, then you might want to check out this story Vice published two days ago. It's got everything you expect from a good, long-format news story (except lasers, anyway), describing a worldwide scandal over a smartphone company run by drug traffickers selling encrypted devices. It's a tale loaded with murder, torture, drugs, the Moroccan mafia, and ROMed Nexuses — not much more you can ask for.

I don't want to go into too much detail, because it really is a wild ride, but the story follows on reporter's research into a smartphone manufacturer known simply as MPC, which provided customers (most notably: criminals) with modified devices allowing encrypted communications. The adventure winds its way around the world, from business cards pointing to shell companies in Dubai, to the murder of a security blogger outside a sex club in Amsterdam.

When you've got a few minutes to spare, give it a read, or at least add it to your Pocket for your next flight, and feel free to binge on the subject a little more.

Source: Vice