Thick promises: Telegram has seen a sharp increase in recruitment activity for terrorist attacks in Russia

The activity of recruiters in Telegram to participate in sabotage and terrorist attacks in Russia has increased several times, the Internet Search company reported. For a thousand dollars, potential terrorists are offered, for example, to blow up sections of the railway, but this money does not reach the perpetrators, experts explain. Larger sums and even assistance in an urgent escape from the country are promised for the "murder of some colonel." About how the Ukrainian special services are trying to recruit Russians and what measures can be taken to counteract this, see the Izvestia article.

"It's time to "congratulate" them on May 9th!"

If in March the number of identified accounts of recruiters was 294, in April — 366, then in May it was already 1,098, according to monitoring data provided to Izvestia by the Internet Search company. In April, an average of slightly more than 5 thousand messages "with signs of recruitment" were recorded per day, and in May — more than 15 thousand.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Konkov

The main audience is drug courier search chats and extremist communities. In the former, recruiters distribute uncomplicated ads offering "menial jobs" for 10-15 thousand rubles. In thematic groups on the darknet, security services are most often searched for perpetrators of arson or other damage to property for slightly larger amounts.

In extremist telegram communities, recruitment is more sophisticated and is aimed at a target audience with relevant views. "Are you ready to plunge into a strategic game against the neo-Bolsheviks? It's time to "congratulate" them on May 9th!" one of the administrators of the neo—Nazi channel addresses his subscribers. For example, he suggests that those who want to "hit the enemy's logistics" contact specially left contacts, pick up a "treasure" at the specified location (hinting at the components of an explosive device), and then detonate it on any section of the existing railway. For this, the performer is promised $ 1 thousand.

Another channel shows the participants of the sabotage rosy prospects for life in Europe. "This is not like laying out bookmarks and sitting on a tag for 300-500 rubles. The game is worth the candle here," the author of the post writes. However, the performer is promised the opportunity to leave Russia with a large sum of money only "after the murder of some colonel."

Photo: Telegram

The Telegram administration has been responding to competent legal requests for a long time, including from Russia, Igor Bederov, head of the Internet Search company, assured Izvestia. According to him, the messenger blocks such content and provides information about accounts associated with terrorist activity. However, customers of sabotage and terrorist attacks can use, for example, virtual SIM cards from other countries and other methods that complicate their identification to anonymize their accounts.

"But in fact, thanks to a variety of other data research tools, Telegram has long ceased to be anonymous," says Bederov.

His company regularly cooperates with law enforcement agencies, passing them the information it collects about terrorist and extremist activity.

"No matter how carefully such recruitment messages are disguised, under the guise of work, for ideological and other reasons, they can be isolated, profiled and controlled by those profiles that spread them, and through them the main communities in which Russians are involved in such activities can be found," Bederov explained. — Another issue is that it is necessary to work out with Telegram a ban on the use of such ads in principle. Because they seem to disguise themselves as official employee search announcements, in fact, Telegram can track down in two or three steps that all these profiles are engaged in recruitment. And if Telegram had taken over this kind of function, then, of course, it would have been extremely effective.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Dmitry Korotaev

According to Izvestia's source in law enforcement agencies, perpetrators of crimes in Russia are indeed identified extremely quickly. They are prosecuted under articles on sabotage and terrorism, and sentenced to many years in prison.

Izvestia sent a request to Telegram with a request to comment on the data of the Internet Search company.

Terrorism and treason

The problem is not only to find out the identity of the recruiter, the source explained to Izvestia. Law enforcement officers often know not only the recruiters themselves, but also the specific units of the Ukrainian special services that are behind them. However, it is impossible to completely stop such activity without eliminating the source of threats, the editorial source believes.

According to Bederov, it is also important to conduct information work among Russian citizens, including at-risk groups. "To explain that even if someone planned to pay them this unfortunate thousand dollars or even a hundred thousand dollars, this money will remain with the curators from foreign intelligence services and will never reach the person who committed these or other illegal actions," the expert says. "The position of the other side is that the more accidental or non—accidental victims the regime has, the more likely it is that the regime will fall in the very near future."

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Konkov

The problem of recruiters is closely linked to other threats from the territory of Ukraine — fraudulent "call centers" and drug trafficking, assured Izvestia's source in the criminal services market on the darknet. Money and personnel for recruiting Russians to participate in sabotage are earned through telephone fraud and drug distribution on the darknet. And these areas in the CIS are 90% controlled by pro-Ukrainian groups, the Izvestia interlocutor believes.

In May, the FSB issued a statement on joint efforts with the Interior Ministry to combat phone fraud. According to the agency, the damage from 640 thousand similar crimes registered in Russia last year amounted to more than 170 billion rubles.

"More than 950 criminal cases have been initiated and are being investigated under articles 205 (terrorism), 159 (fraud), 272 (treason) and 274 of the Criminal Code of Russia (illegal access to personal data). The facts of using call centers to persuade Russian citizens to commit acts of sabotage have been revealed," the special service said in a statement.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexey Maishev

According to the FSB, there are currently 120 to 150 "call centers" operating in Ukraine. "The large-scale organized criminal fraudulent activity unleashed by the Ukrainian regime in the Russian direction is being implemented using the information infrastructure (energy resources, data centers, Internet service providers) of Ukrainian cities, as well as individual EU countries," the special services said in a statement. "A significant part of the money from telephone fraud goes to finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine and nationalist gangs."

Izvestia reported in detail how hacker Vladislav Khorokhorin became the ideologue of the Ukrainian telephone fraud. He also maintains his own infrastructure for the theft and dissemination of personal data of Russians and recognizes the use of stolen funds to finance the Armed Forces and attacks on Russian citizens. Khorokhorin's former partner in the cyber security business, Arkady Bukh, a New York lawyer, told Izvestia that the criminal activity of Ukrainian telephone fraudsters could also be the subject of an investigation in the United States.