Police Department Says It Can Trace ‘More Than 90% of Illegal Gun and Drug Deals’ to This App
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It’s one of the most popular messenger apps in the world. It’s also a favored platform for criminals looking to avoid detection. The app, Telegram, alongside other messaging apps, like WhatsApp, is wildly popular amongst kids.
However, unlike WhatsApp, Telegram allows its one billion plus users to send messages without sharing their phone numbers. It also offers features like large group chats, channels, bots, and “Secret Chats.” Telegram allows users to remain anonymous in ways other end-to-end encrypted communication apps, like WhatsApp and Signal, don’t. This focus on anonymity has made the app a favorite tool amongst criminals.
Telegram’s checkered past already includes it being pulled from the App Store in 2018 after Apple discovered that child pornography was being distributed through the app. Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, quickly responded and addressed these issues, and Telegram returned to the App Store less than 24 hours later.
Durov was arrested in Paris last year and indicted on 12 charges, including distribution of child exploitation material and drug trafficking. Durov founded Telegram in 2013 with his brother, Nikolai, but fled Russia a year later to avoid complying with a government order to hand over user data on Ukrainian protestors and block opposition activists from VKontakte (VK), the Russian social media platform he founded in 2006. The public’s response to Durov’s arrest has been widely condemned as an assault on free speech, and a governmental jockeying for access to data.
It appears as if Durov’s arrest is related to, at least in part, Telegram’s earlier history of non-cooperation with law enforcement. Telegram has recently disputed these reports and highlighted its AI-assisted content moderation.
Nonetheless, these changes haven’t stopped the Albuquerque, New Mexico Police Department (ADP), from warning parents that Telegram, and social media in general, have become “a driving force in juvenile crime.”
This is Telegram. If your kid has this app. Just go ahead and delete it. Whip it off their phone and tell them, ‘I don’t wan’t to see it again.’ Telegram is the wild, wild west. I just saw on the news this morning there are four APS students in the past week who brought guns to school…I bet all four were bought on Telegram.
Kyle Hartstock, APD homicide detective
These are pretty damning claims. Telegram and the story of its founder is eerily similar to that of Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for being complicit in drug trading on the platform he created. However, President Trump recently pardoned Ulbricht, citing the case as part of “the modern day weaponization of government” against political opponents.
No matter what, the APD’s warning reminds parents to stay on top of their kids’ internet activities and app usage. Even today’s most popular and well-moderated apps can be used for illicit activity.
