This summer, South Korean police busted an online drug cartel circulating methamphetamine and MDMA via an encrypted messaging app. The mastermind, as it turned out, was no Pablo Escobar but an 18-year old looking to earn some extra spending cash. Read more
According to data from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India, there are 100 million drug users in the country, with consumption rising 70 percent in the last eight years. In Bengaluru alone, there has been a nearly 10-fold increase in cases over the last three years, with India’s Silicon Valley registering the highest number of cases related to narcotics in the country in 2020. News reports and online forums refer to people’s phones being snatched, with cops searching their chat and photo applications for keywords like “score,” “ganja” and “pot”. Read more
The use of Telegram as a sales and communication platform for drugs has spread across Argentina, and Telegram-enabled crimes have increased by 350% in the last two years. Read more
Millions of people around the world, and many in South Africa, are downloading messaging app Telegram because of new privacy concerns around WhatsApp. Read more
Drug dealers in Ukraine have cultivated an open drug distribution network largely unfettered by law enforcement scrutiny via a widely used tool: the secure messenger app Telegram. Read more
