KATHMANDU, Dec 10: As the police stepped up vigilance over popular messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Viber, and WhatsApp to curb potential fraudulent activities, Nepali cyber criminals started using secured messaging apps such as Telegram and Signal to plan and operate their illegal businesses.
The increasing use of these apps by cyber criminals has become noticeable this year as the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police recorded an unusual rise of 3480 percent in the use of Telegram by cyber fraudsters in the first five months of the current fiscal year as compared to the entire period of the last fiscal year. There have been no complaints against cyber frauds through Signal but the Cyber Bureau has confirmed that the use of the app is fast increasing, raising suspicion.
Police have recorded 696 complaints of cyber frauds where Telegram was used in the first five months of Fiscal year 2024/25, up from a total of 20 complaints about the use of Telegram in cyber frauds in the entire Fiscal Year 2023/24. The bureau had not received a single complaint against the use of Telegram in cyber fraud in the Fiscal Year 2022/23.
Both Telegram and Signal are encrypted messaging apps that prioritize users’ privacy and security, making them a preferred choice for cyber criminals who seek to avoid detection by the police. Since these apps boast that not even the respective developer companies can access the content of the messages sent via the apps, they are increasingly popular among criminals around the world involved in illegal activities such as scams, theft, and robbery.
Controlling cyber conflict
Superintendent of Police (SP) Deepak Raj Awasthi at the Cyber Bureau informed Republica that Telegram is now being used widely by criminals involved in cyber frauds in Nepal.
“Around 59 percent of the complaints we receive against cyber crimes are for cyber frauds,” he said, “And we have started noticing a trend of the use of Telegram in most of the complaints against cyber frauds.”
Until September, police organizations across the world used to be helpless when it came to looking into the content of messages sent via Telegram as the app prioritized the privacy of its users. However, with rising public scrutiny over the criminal usage of the messaging app, the developers in September started disclosing the users' IP addresses, phone numbers to law enforcement agencies in response to a legal request to crack down on criminal activities.
However, the Nepal Police has not been a beneficiary of the change in Telegram’s policy. “The improved policy which enables police organizations to access the information about the messages has only been applied to law enforcement agencies that are covered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which includes countries in the European Union and its trading partners such as the US and Canada,” SP Awasthi informed Republica, “We cannot get access to such information.”
According to SP Awasthi, one of the reasons behind Nepal Police’s inability to access the contents shared via Telegram or Signal is that these apps have not created an interface whereby police organizations can request data from them.
“In the case of Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp) and TikTok, there are separate interfaces that Nepal Police can use to request information,” he said, “Telegram and Signal have no such feature.”
In such an instance, it has become increasingly difficult for the police to initiate an investigation into the content of messages sent via Telegram and Signal, let alone solve them. SP Awasthi expressed dismay about this situation.
“We attempt to solve such cases using other methods,” he told Republica, “But we are toothless without access to the information about the senders of the messages.”
