A network of Indian Telegram accounts and groups was removed on Tuesday following an investigation by Aaj Tak. In its investigation, Aaj Tak had exposed accounts and groups actively selling child sexual abuse content and rape pornography videos.
Posing as buyers, journalists from Aaj Tak’s open-source investigation (OSINT) team contacted these sellers and using digital forensic methods found that their location was in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. These people used UPI services to receive money and sent QR codes of Google Pay and FamApp.
Also read: Pornographic content is being sold on Telegram by claiming rape incidents, 1000 videos of child porn for just Rs 2.5
Contacted three telegram operators
Speaking to Aaj Tak, a Telegram spokesperson said, ‘Telegram actively moderates harmful content, including child abuse, on its platform. Moderators actively monitor the public parts of the platform, for which they also use AI tools and accept user reports to remove a large number of harmful content every day.’
Aaj Tak reporters contacted at least three Telegram operators involved in selling content as ‘child porn’ and ‘rape porn’. These accounts were part of several groups where messages promoting the sale of such content for just a few hundred rupees were constantly sent.
Users got lured by fake UPI screenshots
Lured by fake UPI screenshots sent by Aaj Tak’s team, the Telegram account operators made available a large number of videos, including those of very young children. The syndicate also promised access to exclusive closed Telegram groups where more content would be available.
Analysis of their IP addresses, device signatures and ISP logs revealed that these operators were active in various states of India and were mostly using Android mobiles for their operations.
Telegram removed accounts and groups
Following the investigation, Aaj Tak sent details of these accounts and groups to Telegram on Monday. Additional evidence in the form of post URLs of these activities was also provided. As of Tuesday morning, all the reported accounts and groups no longer exist on Telegram.
Last month, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested by French police. French investigators alleged that Telegram was frequently used to transmit child sexual abuse material and other illegal content and that it did not cooperate with authorities.
Telegram is taking action against illegal activities
He was later released on 5 million euro bail but a formal investigation remains ongoing. Since then, Telegram and its leadership have issued statements expressing a renewed commitment to take action against illegal activities.
According to data provided by the online messaging and content distribution platform, a total of 17683 groups and channels have been banned globally so far in September. The Dubai-based company’s Telegram app has over 700 million monthly active users and is among the top 5 most downloaded apps in the world.
Follow us On Social Media Google News and Twitter/X