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. Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, is known as "the Russian Mark Zuckerberg," for co-founding VKontakte, which is Russian for "in touch," a Facebook imitator that became the country's most popular social networking site. 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. In December 2021, Sebi officials had conducted a search and seizure operation at the premises of certain persons carrying out similar manipulative activities through Telegram channels. Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images
from tw