According to a United Nations (UN) assessment, Telegram has turned into a sanctuary for criminal networks in Southeast Asia, assisting them in trading hacked data, obtaining fraud tools, and utilizing cryptocurrency to launder stolen assets.
The UN claims that the end-to-end encrypted app has radically altered the way organized crime functions, as reported by Reuters. It discovered that Southeast Asian criminal organizations, including Chinese syndicates, allegedly earn between $27.4 billion and $36.5 billion a year.
Additionally, it has been revealed that money laundering services are being advertised on the app by unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges. “We move three million USDT stolen from overseas per day,” according to one advertisement that the UN spotted.
Telegram is used by criminal networks to purchase malware intended to steal money and exchange stolen personal data, such as passwords and credit card numbers. It was also discovered that at least ten companies selling deepfake software were marketing to criminals.
Tether (USDT) has been referred to by the UN as the preferred stablecoin for Asian criminal networks. In fact, an indictment filed earlier this year revealed that around $35.4 million had been taken from victims of a pig butchering scam and exchanged for USDT.
An underground banking organization that was accused of using USDT to facilitate over $2 billion in illegal transactions was also eliminated by Chinese police.
Pavel Durov, the inventor of Telegram, was detained in August and accused of enabling the platform to support illegal transactions, drug trafficking, and child sex photos.
Since then, Durov has made a number of platform modifications, including removing the “people nearby” feature and deleting any mentions in the FAQ about private chats being safeguarded.
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