N.D.Ill.: Assistance and foreign wiretap were done by locals; no U.S. involvement, so no 4A protection

Defendant was indicted for ATM skimming and other identity theft offenses. The FBI started the investigation and contacted Bulgarian police about phone numbers from there. Bulgarian police tied the numbers to defendant, and they procured wiretaps at U.S. request and cooperated under their MLAT treaty with the U.S. This was still a foreign search. While assistance was requested, the U.S. wasn’t participating. “The caselaw makes clear that the express terms of a law enforcement agreement between the United States and a foreign government do not establish the parameters of a U.S. court’s Fourth Amendment analysis. The defendant’s argument concentrates on the types of cooperation the MLAT Agreement provides for rather than what actually occurred in the case at bar.” United States v. Evtimov, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40006 (N.D.Ill. March 28, 2016).