About nine months ago, while working on a story, I was unexpectedly added to a large Telegram channel dedicated to drug sales. Soon after, I found myself in channels related to hacking and stolen credit cards. I realized my Telegram settings allowed others to add me to their channels without my consent. Out of curiosity, I left the settings unchanged to observe what would happen. Within a few months, I had been added to 65 different groups.
I eventually changed my settings to prevent this, but now, every time I log in, I am bombarded with thousands of new messages from numerous highly active illegal groups.
The recent arrest of Telegram’s billionaire CEO in France has sparked a debate about the app’s moderation policies. Pavel Durov faces charges of suspected complicity in enabling illicit transactions, drug trafficking, fraud, and the distribution of child sexual abuse images on his platform.
While criminal activities occur on other social networks as well, my experiment highlights a broader issue that has concerned law enforcement for years. Here are some examples of the groups I was added to. All images were posted in these groups, and we have altered the channel names to avoid promoting them.
- Card Swipers group (15,700 members): This group sells stolen cloned credit cards and ships them worldwide. Images and videos show criminals successfully withdrawing cash from ATMs using the fake cards and displaying large amounts of cash.
- Drugs Gardens official (9,119 members): This group sells marijuana, marijuana cookies, and illegal vapes. Videos and images of products and customer reviews are shared regularly.
- Memories and Drugs (6,253 members): This group offers almost every drug imaginable for sale, with numerous Telegram channels advertising vendors in cities worldwide.
