Telegram Purged Chinese Crypto Scam Markets—Then Watched as They Rebuilt

Before they were deleted by Telegram, the Xinbi guarantee and the Haowang guarantee displayed similar items offering explicitly illegal services in all these categories and more. Like the newly ascending Tudou guarantee, these other “guaranteed” markets did not directly sell services, but rather offer entire support and deposit features that prevent suppliers from fraud customers.

When Wired asked the telegram in May on An elliptic report Who focused on the criminal offers of the Xinbi warranty, Telegram responded with a wide purge: He prohibited not only Xinbi’s accounts, but also those of the Haowang guarantee, the much larger market which had persisted for three years, allowed about 27 billion dollars of transactions and sold services of the scam industry as explicit as the batons and manilles used to imprison forced laboratories in scam compounds.

In a statement sent to Wired at the time, Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn wrote that “communities previously reported to us by Wired or included in reports published by Elliptic have all been withdrawn”, and added that “criminal activities such as scam or money laundering are prohibited by the conditions of use of TELEGRAM and each time. “

Since then, however, Elliptic has continued to share its conclusions on the apparent money laundering activity on ten other markets, including the Tudou guarantee, in a telegram group which included a cable journalist and a spokesperson for the telegram. However, Telegram did not withdraw any of the accounts related to the black markets that elliptical has highlighted. Xinbi’s guarantee has in fact rebuilt on new accounts without even rebuilding. He still has not faced new account bans, despite the telegram itself declaring that the content of the market had violated its conditions of use.

In a statement in Wired, a spokesperson for the telegram defended the company’s apparent decision not to ban the bouncing black markets. “The channels in question mainly involve users of China, where rigid capital controls often leave citizens of other choices than to search for alternative routes to move funds internationally,” the press release said. “We assess the reports on a case -by -case basis and categorically reject general prohibitions, in particular when users try to bypass the oppressive restrictions imposed by authoritarian regimes. We remain unshakable in our commitment to protect the confidentiality of users and to defend fundamental freedoms, including the right to financial autonomy.”

Robinson d’Elliptic rejects this argument. “We have been looking for these markets for almost two years now, and it is not a question of helping people get financial autonomy,” says Robinson. “These are markets that mainly facilitate money laundering for the product of fraud and other illicit activities.”

Erin West, a former prosecutor who now directs the non -profit operation Shamrock, an organization focused on the disruption of cryptographic scam operations, more simply declares his accusation against Telegram. “They are bad guys, allowing the bad guys on their bad guys platform,” says West. “They have the ability to close a scam economy and trafficking in human beings. Instead, they host Craigslist for cryptographic crooks. ”

The apparently inconsistent approach of Telegram to ban the black markets of cryptographic scam may have less to do with its principles of “financial autonomy” than to try not to appear to the United States government, explains Jacob Sims, guest scholarship holder at the Harvard University Center. At the beginning of May, the network for applying financial crimes of the US Treasury officially qualified the Huione group a “Primary concern of money laundering. “Sims argue that the designation, which referred directly to the Haowang guarantee but not to the guarantee of Tudou, may have encouraged Telegram to act – and that it can take another movement similar to the level of government to push Telegram to act again.

“In the end, the repression of last month shows how disruptive the telegram can be when it cooperates, but it also shows how fast the crooks will adapt,” explains Sims. “There is no real legal guilt that technological companies have for what is happening on their platform unless there is a specific case brought to their attention by the police. And so, until it changes, I just don’t know what incentive they should be proactive. ”