Underground markets for personal data are moving to Telegram, and their sellers are actively seeking opportunities to cooperate with transnational criminal groups in Southeast Asia. This is stated in a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, to which Reuters drew attention.
Author:
https://rb.ru/author/bmuzichenko/
Subscribe to RB.RU on Telegram
The document says that minimally moderated Telegram channels sell credit card information, passwords, browser history and cybercrime tools, including data theft malware, “on a large scale.”
Additionally, Telegram operates unlicensed crypto exchanges that offer money laundering services: “We move 3 million USDT stolen from abroad every day,” the report cites an advertisement in Chinese.
Southeast Asia has become a major hub for a multibillion-dollar cyber fraud industry targeting victims around the world, generating between $27.4 billion and $36.5 billion a year, according to the report.
-
On August 24, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was detained at Le Bourget airport in Paris. The reason for the arrest was the courier’s refusal to transfer information about crimes committed in the service to local security forces.
-
That same month, Durov was released on €5 million bail and banned from leaving France.
-
The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beco, stated that the businessman is cooperating with the investigation. In turn, the founder of Telegram reported that the messenger has been transferring IP addresses and phone numbers of criminals to governments of different countries since 2018.
Author:
Bogdan Muzychenko
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
