I don't get this. Was this company providing a legal service or not? How is it that they are being accused of being directly involved in criminality.
The government can't outlaw mathematics, or mandate backdoors into everyone's communications...
If you read the case file it is not the device, it’s what they were using it for.
Is "Signal" illegal as well?
Again, rephrase your question.
A better question would be "Can "Signal" be used illegally as well?"
Was this company providing a legal service or not?
A better question would be "Was this company providing an illegal service?"
See the pattern?
Destruction of evidence - is a crime. The company guaranteed that if the device was seized by law enforcement, that they would remotely delete all messages.
If they were knowingly operating in furtherance of an illegal enterprise, then yes, they are operating criminally. Say, approaching Sinaloa and offering to handle their encrypted communications through their company using these modified Blackberry Android phones for an especially high fee due to the knowledge the information being transmitted was to further the exchange of illegal and contraband substances, definitely illegal.
It’s probably along the line of “they customized hardware and software in violation of export standards to facilitate known illegal activity”. Plus they probably cooked the books to obscure the fact they were charging 100x normal price for them...