As the war in Ukraine rages, the messaging app Telegram has emerged as the go-to place for unfiltered live war updates for both Ukrainian refugees and increasingly isolated Russians alike. Perpetrators of these scams will create a public group on Telegram to promote these investment packages that are usually accompanied by fake testimonies and sometimes advertised as being Shariah-compliant. Interested investors will be asked to directly message the representatives to begin investing in the various investment packages offered. In the United States, Telegram's lower public profile has helped it mostly avoid high level scrutiny from Congress, but it has not gone unnoticed. The perpetrators use various names to carry out the investment scams. They may also impersonate or clone licensed capital market intermediaries by using the names, logos, credentials, websites and other details of the legitimate entities to promote the illegal schemes. On Feb. 27, however, he admitted from his Russian-language account that "Telegram channels are increasingly becoming a source of unverified information related to Ukrainian events."
from ar