A few months ago we ran a small experiment. We created a new account in Telegram and started looking for a job. We joined channels that were directly about jobs in Estonia. Here’s what happened.
We were quickly offered to 1) carry migrants from Belarusian border to Germany, 2) to scam Swiss out of their savings, 3) launder money by allowing unknown people use our bank accounts, 4) different drug related gigs, 5) send a photo of our penis for 2500 USD (we rejected).
Here’s a screenshot of just one of the conversations. A “Steve Jobs” offered us $1300 per person to carry migrants from Latvia’s border with Belarus to Germany. He provided us with a detailed route of the trip. 
"People are aiming to reach Germany. These are the kind of people you can even put in your trunk. They have a mission to get to Germany. It doesn't matter how they get there, they just want to get there,” explained another recruiter in the same business.
One of the most common offers is to give someone access to your bank account, they’ll make all the transfers they need to and will then leave you with a percentage. Of course they say it’s all totally legal…
Do you know who a mammoth is? In Russian scamsters jargon a mammoth is someone who can be cheated out of money. They especially target the Swiss. It works like this: log into a Swiss local classifieds portal & pretend to be a buyer or seller of any product.
Maxim - who invited us to join his crew - gave an example: "I'm selling a bicycle, price: 800 Swiss francs.
"After that, we make a fishing loop with the bot (done in 30 seconds) and send him a text message. He gets a text: "Confirm your details to receive a deposit".
"After that, we make a fishing loop with the bot (done in 30 seconds) and send him a text message. He gets a text: "Confirm your details to receive a deposit".
“The message looks like an official service, so the mammoth believes it. He clicks on the link and enters his card details. Once he's done, we'll write off a small amount of money from his card and pay you the profit," Maxim tells.
These are just some of the examples of what we were offered. Bottomline: Telegram has made it so easy. You don’t need to know the dark web to buy/sell drugs, find quick criminal gigs or even if you’re a Russian secret service looking to hire people for sabotage ops in Europe.
Here’s a story we did with @InsiderEng recently. It’s shows how Russia is specifically using Telegram for sabotage ops. The one that we reported about didn’t turn out too well for them.
But it serves the point: even if the gig fails, the recruiter doesn’t carry any consequences. If 9 ops fail & 1 succeeds, it’s still a success. theins.ru/en/politics/27…
If you’re interested to hear more about it, we discussed the same topic with @IngaSpringe and @ichbinilya at @OCCRP's recent podcast.
The original stories about job seeking in Telegram are available on Delfi (paywalled). In Estonian: ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/12029…
And in Russian: rus.delfi.ee/statja/1202961…
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