Criminals use Telegram to recruit ‘walkers’ as America’s big banks see an 84% increase in check fraud

A screenshot posted to the messaging platform Telegram shows a bank receipt confirming a $24,000 check deposit.

“I’m happy I was able to walk this for u .. let’s do it again yay,” reads the caption.

The photo and caption don’t look suspicious at first glance, but the posting is actually advertising criminal services that cost U.S. banks billions of dollars a year, according to a cybersecurity expert.

The Covid-19 pandemic — and trillions of dollars in rescue funds that were disbursed across the U.S. in the form of paper checks — have given new life to an old scheme: check washing. It’s a tried and true scam where criminals steal checks, wash out the names, write in new ones and cash them under false identities. Pandemic relief funds and new, secure messaging apps have made it all the more easy to execute and get away with the elaborate schemes.

“It’s a big problem that’s getting worse,” said Paul Benda, senior vice president of cybersecurity and risk at the American Bankers Association.

In 2021, banks reported nearly 250,000 cases of check fraud nationwide, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the U.S. Treasury Department. By last year, that number exploded: nearly 460,000 check fraud cases were reported – an increase of 84%.

One app in particular, Telegram, has made it easier for organized crime groups to recruit, train, organize and execute the schemes, according to Maria Noriega, a senior cyber-intelligence analyst at Q6, a cybersecurity firm that is a consultant to CNBC.

“Check fraud, and perhaps fraud in general flourishes on Telegram mainly due to its unrestrictive nature,” Noriega said.

Telegram told CNBC in a statement it actively moderates harmful content on its platform, including for potential fraud, and has “banned millions of chats and accounts for violating our Terms of Service.”

Even so, Q6 was able to find at least 30 channels on Telegram dedicated to providing the latest tips and techniques to commit bank fraud. The largest of those groups had as many as 20,000 members. 

The platform, which allows users to send encrypted messages to each other and groups, is popular among criminals because they can hide their identity behind anonymous usernames, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. The encrypted data and anonymity of the site make it next to impossible for U.S. and international police to trace the messages back to the real users,…