Since January 2022, the SC has received a total of 47 complaints and enquiries on illegal investment schemes promoted through Telegram. These fraudulent schemes offer non-existent investment opportunities, promising very attractive and risk-free returns within a short span of time. They commonly offer unrealistic returns of as high as 1,000% within 24 hours or even within a few hours. The next bit isn’t clear, but Durov reportedly claimed that his resignation, dated March 21st, was an April Fools’ prank. TechCrunch implies that it was a matter of principle, but it’s hard to be clear on the wheres, whos and whys. Similarly, on April 17th, the Moscow Times quoted Durov as saying that he quit the company after being pressured to reveal account details about Ukrainians protesting the then-president Viktor Yanukovych. "We as Ukrainians believe that the truth is on our side, whether it's truth that you're proclaiming about the war and everything else, why would you want to hide it?," he said. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion.
from id
