A UN report has revealed the presence of powerful criminal networks in Southeast Asia on messaging app Telegram, engaging in large-scale illicit activity.
The report gives credence to allegations of unfettered criminal activities taking place on the app, which in August led to the arrest of co-founder Pavel Durov by the French authorities.
Durov, who has since been out on bail, said Telegram is not an "anarchic paradise" as has been claimed. He also agreed to sharing users' IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities making legal requests.
The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its report said hacked data including credit card details, passwords and browser history are openly traded on a vast scale on Telegram.
The app was also found hosting ads for deepfake software and malware used for the purpose of fraud and theft of data.
"We move 3 million USDT stolen from overseas per day," the report quoted one ad as saying in Chinese, according to Reuters.
According to the UN, criminal syndicates focusing on cybercrime in Southeast Asia generate between $27.4 billion to $36.5 billion annually.
UNODC deputy representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific Benedikt Hofmann said the app posed itself as an easy host for criminals.
"For consumers, this means their data is at a higher risk of being fed into scams or other criminal activity than ever before," he told Reuters.
The UNODC said it had identified more than 10 deepfake software service providers "specifically targeting criminal groups involved in cyberenabled fraud in Southeast Asia."
South Korea last month passed a bill criminalising possessing or watching sexually explicit deepfake content with a provision of imprisonment for violation.
The law was passed in the wake of several local media reports revealing a spate of sexual deepfake images of South Korean women -- most of them teenagers -- dominating Telegram chat rooms.
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