DHS Knew Illegals Made False Claims for Asylum

Posted on November 23, 2015November 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

Fire the bastard, Jeh Johnson, recall him, prosecute him and dis-BAR him….and the rest of his staff that are complicit in this scam.

JudicialWatch: The Obama administration let hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. even though federal authorities knew in advance that an open borders group coached them to falsely claim “credible fear” to get asylum, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The operation was part of a scam conducted by an immigrant rights organization called the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NITA), which in recent years has coordinated demonstrations along the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. In mid-2014 the group orchestrated a racket seeking to bring 250 illegal aliens into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California. To assure the migrants were allowed to stay in the U.S., the group had them falsely claim that they had a “credible fear” of returning to their native country. Foreigners can claim asylum under five categories, based on fear of persecution over race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a specific social group

In this particular case, the DHS agency charged with guarding the border—Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—actually admits knowing about the ploy in advance but allows the illegal aliens to stay anyways. Here’s an excerpt from the records obtained by JW through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): “BACKGROUND: The National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NITA) activists have coordinated previous demonstrations along the Southwest Border (Laredo, Texas and Nogales, Arizona). During this iteration, NIYA seek to bring 250 people to the Otay Mesa Port of Entry where they will request entry to the U.S. Previous CBP reporting of these events indicate the individuals applying for entry will have no entitlements to enter, pass through or remain in the United States and will summarily claim Credible Fear (CF).”

This is downright outrageous and has been going on for years, though we’ve never seen written evidence that the feds were complicit in a specific “credible fear” scam. In 2013 JW wrote about a San Diego news report that said droves of illegal aliens were flooding the Otay crossing claiming “credible fear” of Mexican drug cartels. In just one day 199 migrants had entered through Otay, the story revealed. The piece quoted a Border Patrol agent saying this: “They are being told if they come across, when they come up to the border and they say certain words, they will be allowed into the country.”

Credible fear asylum in the U.S. has become so popular that illegal aliens are hearing about it on Facebook and federal immigration authorities are overwhelmed with applications. In the last few years the number of foreigners, including large numbers from terrorist countries, asserting credible fear to gain asylum in this country has skyrocketed. During congressional testimony a few years ago, the heads of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP confirmed that the percentage of individuals expressing a fear to remain in the U.S. has risen tremendously in the last few years.

The figures are incredibly alarming. In the last five years the number of “credible fear” asylum applications made at the border has increased sevenfold, from less than 5,000 to more than 36,000, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) and federal immigration official told Congress during a hearing earlier this year. Now a law professor at a prominent university, the official told lawmakers that statistics from USCIS Asylum Division show an approval rate of 92% for credible fear claims before the 2014 border surge. “Unfortunately the high approval rate for credible fear claims, and the resulting backlog in the immigration court system, have meant that in practice ‘credible fear’ has served to screen into the United States undocumented aliens wishing to make asylum claims,” the professor, Jan C. Ting told Congress. “That explains why many illegal border crossers don’t run from the U.S. Border Patrol, but instead seek them out to make asylum claims subject only to the low threshold of credible fear.”

Today, the backlog of credible fear cases pending in federal immigration courts is an astounding 450,000, according to a news report published this month. This could create huge national security risks because often asylum seekers are released from custody to await a court hearing. Just last week eight Syrian refugees turned themselves into U.S. immigration authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border. They are asking for asylum because the fear returning to their war-torn, terrorist-infested nation, but U.S. authorities have no reliable way to vet them.

CIA’s Fugitive Banker in Idaho

Posted on November 11, 2015November 11, 2015 by Denise Simon

This is a story that makes for a great movie script but there are some that would push back especially those involved during the Reagan years and the Contra arms deal.

The newspaper article found here expands even further, naming more names.

A Nugan Hand branch in the Thai opium-producing country, for example, abutted the office of the American Drug Enforcement Administration – and even shared a receptionist with it. Important American companies in Saudi Arabia backed Nugan Hand’s aggressive sales there to American workers; big investment money was raked in, sometimes being carried away in plastic garbage bags, much of it disappearing forever. In 1979, Nugan Hand hoped to gain United Nations money to settle Indochinese refugees in the Turks and Caicos Islands, seen as ideal Caribbean transshipment points on the narcotics routes from South America.

FOUND After 35 Years: CIA’s Fugitive Banker

How Michael Jon Hand, who founded an Australian bank with ties to American military and intelligence officials that defrauded depositors and investors, was tracked to Idaho.

By Raymond Bonner, Special to ProPublica

It was one of the greatest disappearing acts of modern times.

Amid a swirl of allegations and rumors that the Nugan Hand Bank was involved in arms smuggling, drug-running, and covert operations for the CIA, the institution’s American founder vanished from Australia. Thirty-five years later, that man, Michael Jon Hand, was tracked to a small town in Idaho where he has been living under the name of Michael Jon Fuller.

Hand was found by an Australian writer, Peter Butt, whose just-released book, Merchants of Menace, discloses Hand’s whereabouts after decades of mystery.

If finding Hand, now 73, solves one mystery, it raises another. How could he have lived in the United States so long without being detected? He changed his name only slightly, from Hand to Fuller, and did not get a new Social Security number, according to Butt.

Hand’s company, G.M.I. Manufacturing, is registered with the Idaho secretary of state. The company “now manufactures tactical weapons for US Special Forces, special operations groups and hunters,’’ Butt writes. Has Hand/Fuller been brazen, foolish, or, as Butt asks, does he belong “to a protected species, most likely of the intelligence kind?”

Two years after fleeing Australia, in 1982, when the CIA was involved in a covert operation to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Hand was working as a military adviser in the region where the anti-Sandinista “contras” were based, according to an Australian intelligence document, which was declassified earlier this year.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The CIA has previously denied it had any links to Hand.

Hand had been a Green Beret in Vietnam and a CIA operative in Laos before moving to Australia, where he and Frank Nugan, a wealthy playboy, established the Nugan Hand Bank in 1973, with $80. Hand fled Australia seven years later, after Nugan was found dead inside his Mercedes-Benz, his left hand holding the barrel of a .30-caliber rifle a few inches from his head, his right hand near the trigger.

During an inquest into Nugan’s death, Hand testified that the bank was insolvent, owing investors large and small some $50 million. The inquest ruled Nugan’s death a suicide, a finding many Australians found dubious.

With depositors and law enforcement authorities in pursuit, Hand, with assistance from a former CIA officer, secured a forged Australian passport, donned a false mustache and beard, and fled Australia in June of 1980. He flew to Fiji, then on to Canada, from which he could cross into the United States without a visa.

The Sydney Morning Herald first reported on Butt’s findings on Monday. In a segment that aired Sunday night, Australia’s 60 Minutes filmed Hand/Fuller emerging from a pharmacy at a shopping mall in Idaho Falls. He has a full beard and neck brace, and was wearing sunglasses and a blue checked shirt. He refused to answer any questions or speak at all when confronted by 60 Minutes reporter Ross Coulthart.

Suspicions about the bank’s links to the CIA arose almost immediately after Nugan was found dead. His wallet contained the business card of William E. Colby, who had been director of the CIA from 1973 to 1976.

Colby was forced to resign when it was reported that the agency had been engaged in illegal spying on American citizens. He became a legal adviser to Nugan Hand, and on the back of his business card were handwritten dates when someone, presumably Colby, would be in Hong Kong and Singapore.

As reporters began digging into Nugan Hand, they found that Colby wasn’t the only individual with an intelligence or military background involved with the bank.

“Nugan Hand had enough generals, admirals, and spooks to run a small war,” Jonathan Kwitny, an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, wrote in the definitive book about the bank, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA.

Illegals Just Released Their Bill of Rights/Demands

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Illegal immigrants release ‘Bill of Rights’
Demand citizenship, birth certificates, medical care

The team of people behind this is found here.
WashingtonTimes: An immigrant-rights group proposed a “Bill of Rights” for illegal immigrants Thursday, demanding that Americans recognize there are millions already in the country who deserve health care, in-state tuition rates for college and a guarantee of citizenship in the long term.

The purpose of this document is to awaken and instill courage and cooperation among our leaders, to grow public awareness and to create a crisis of conscience where Americans have to do more than talk about us; they have to talk with us. They must approach this discussion with respect for our determination to add our story to the nation’s proud immigrant anthology.

We’re already here and have been for years. We work hard, take care of our families and have deep roots in our communities. More time is something we don’t have. Our children are getting older without access to equal educational opportunities. Our working adults are unable to reach any kind of wage parity and advance in their professions. We live with no sense of security that our lives won’t be disrupted, our families torn apart. And we’re constantly berated and stereotyped as a monolithic group to be condemned and ostracized. Being discouraged is one thing; losing all hope of working our way toward legal acceptance is something we can’t abide and the nation can’t afford – morally or economically. Read more from their own website here.

The list of demands runs 10 items long — the same as the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights — and also calls for an end to arrests and deportations for “all law-abiding undocumented Americans.” The document was circulated by United We Stay, which is a group of illegal immigrants, first generation Americans and human rights activists pushing for changes to immigration law.
“We know we have human rights, even though our very presence is deemed illegal and our existence alien. Now we have our own Bill of Rights and we want it to be the framework for every immigration decision going forward from the local to the national level,” the group said in a statement announcing their demands.

The 10 points include a demand that they be accorded respect; calls for citizenship rights and an immediate deferment of deportations; in-state tuition at public colleges; “wage equality”; medical care; and protection against deportation if illegal immigrants report a crime as a witness.

The list also includes a specific demand for “compelled authorization of birth certificates for our U.S.-born children.” That appears to be pushback against the state of Texas, where officials have ruled that parents must present valid ID to get children’s birth certificates — and have deemed the Mexican government’s Matricula Consular ID card not to be acceptable as primary identification.

A federal court has allowed that Texas policy to go into effect, ruling that there are questions about the reliability of the Mexican cards and that state officials have an interest in making sure only authorized relatives are able to get birth certificates.

The list of rights begins with a protest against the terms “illegal” and “alien.” Immigrant-rights advocates say both terms are dehumanizing, and have offered “undocumented workers” or, in the case of United We Stand, “Undocumented Americans,” as their preferred term.

The document is meant to serve as a goalpost for the ongoing immigration debate. Immigrant-rights groups had been gaining ground in recent years, with polls suggesting Americans were increasingly open to legalization.

A legalization bill even passed the Senate in 2013 — but Democrats, who controlled the chamber, never sent it to the GOP-run House for action.

The issue then stalled last year after President Obama took unilateral action to grant a deportation amnesty to as many as 5 million of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Federal courts have put that amnesty on hold, but Mr. Obama’s other policies stopping deportations for most illegal immigrants remain in place, which has effectively checked off one of the list of rights’ demands.

DEA Joins FBI Against WH on Ferguson Effect

Posted on November 4, 2015November 6, 2015 by Denise Simon

Last month, this website wrote that FBI Director James Comey has determined the real cause of the low morale by the nation’s law enforcement. The White House has continued to push back hard on Comey but now the Drug Enforcement Agency is standing with the FBI on this very issue. Border Patrol also joined with the DEA and FBI.

DEA chief: Comey ‘spot on’ linking Ferguson impact to crime surge

USAToday – WASHINGTON — The nation’s top drug enforcement official said Wednesday that FBI Director James Comey was “spot on” when he recently offered the controversial assessment that violent crime surges in some cities may be linked to police officers’ reluctance to engage suspects.

“I think there is something to it,” Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg told reporters, referring to the so-called “Ferguson-effect” in which police have been reportedly hesitant to act for fear of prompting the kind of civil unrest that engulfed Ferguson, Mo., last year. “I think (Comey) was spot on.”

Comey’s remarks during appearances last month in Chicago put the FBI director at odds with some in law enforcement and the White House, which indicated that existing evidence did not support such a claim.

“I will say that the available evidence at this point does not support the notion that law enforcement officers around the country are shying away from fulfilling their responsibilities,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week. “On the contrary, I think you’ve seen a lot of local law enforcement leaders indicate that police officers and sheriffs and other local law enforcement officials are actually dedicated public servants who on a daily basis are putting their lives on the line to serve and protect the communities that they’re assigned to.”

The FBI director has acknowledged that data is lacking to support a definitive conclusion, yet he said that he maintained a “strong sense” of a connection based on reports from local law enforcement officials.

Rosenberg, who served as Comey’s chief of staff before his May appointment as acting DEA administrator, said he has heard similar concerns from local law enforcement officials.

“I’ve heard the same things,” Rosenberg said. “I think it’s worth talking about. I don’t know if it will turn out to be right or wrong. That’s why Comey called for better data. The data that we have is limited. It just is.”

Of the disagreement voiced by the White House, Rosenberg said: “The White House is a building, so I’m not sure what the White House thinks,” Rosenberg said, adding that he believed Comey’s remarks were “thoughtful and measured.”

“When you get criticized from the right and the left, you probably hit it just about perfectly,” he said.

For months, law enforcement officials have been grappling with the possible causes of recent spikes in violent crime plaguing some major cities — Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis among them — even as crime in much of the country has been in a sustained decline.

Last month, Attorney General Loretta Lynch hosted a meeting to address the issue where representatives of at least 20 cities cited poverty, heroin addiction and easy access to firearms as likely triggers. Others also voiced frustration that an erosion of public support for officers was having an effect on the way communities were being policed.

“We also cannot avert our gaze from the fact that police in cities feel like they are not being supported by the federal government,” Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said and referred to a recent federal focus on the operations of more than 20 police agencies in recent years prompted by allegations of officer misconduct. “Right now, officers feel like they are being defined by everything they are working against.”

“Every incident, regardless of where it happens, they are made to feel they must answer for,” the chief said. “It’s hurting them. National policing policy is being driven by random YouTube videos.”

Telegram App Moves Terror Money Globally

Posted on November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

Mixing the good with the bad. Founderscode.com has previously posted about Telegram, the phone app, where Islamic State was using it for communications due to end to end encryption. Today, TRAC Insight took a deeper dive. A recommendation to smart phone users, think twice about using this app.

TRAC Insight: Massive Migration to Telegram, the new Jihadist Destination

October 30, 2015 from TRAC Insight

Submitted by

Veryan Khan

Brian Watts

Bethany Rudibaugh

Cat Cooper

Introduction

The roller coaster of social media suspensions and removed jihadi content is well documented. However, the jihadis’ struggle to keep up with the relentless suspensions and removal of jihadi social media content, may have finally run its course. The new frontier of jihadi communication is taking place on a recently launched tool, in a messaging platform that has revolutionized the social media sphere, and at least for now put an end to any watchdog oversight.

This TRAC project does not merely document that many groups have shifted to Telegram, it describes how they operate on Telegram. The following report is divided into three sections:

Jihadi Infrastructure on Telegram,
Money Transferring on Telegram, and
Cross Section of TRAC’s Telegram Archives.

The New Virtual Underground Railroad

Telegram was created as a free, encrypted, messaging application that guarantees both privacy and never to delete accounts. On September 22, 2015, Telegram introduced a new feature, called “channels” – it is this new feature that has been enthusiastically embraced by many militant groups, becoming an underground railroad for distributing and archiving jihadi propaganda materials. Moreover, Telegram’s chat feature continues to be essential to both the recruiting and money moving activities.

For More on TRAC Insight: Adaptation Strategies in the Islamic State Twitter War

For More on TRAC Insight: Google Plus- Hidden Passage to Recruitment

Not a Fad

Though TRAC has seen sporadic attempts to jump to other social media platforms by many different militant groups worldwide, we have good reasons to believe this is an actual resettlement — a grassroots movement to shift communication styles. The usual pattern of initial attempts to transit from a mainstream social media outlet like Twitter, to another social media platform for covert communications is: initial patchy use; followed by a dropping off of content; then, ultimately becoming a “back-channel” for propaganda when all other media outlets are unavailable for one reason or another. This current migration to Telegram looks nothing like the past attempts to move from the more mainstream social media platforms like Twitter. The sheer scale and momentum of the Telegram migration is hard to fathom. The force of the numbers using Telegram channels is staggering, watching hundreds of new members in an hours’ time; thousands coming on in over a few days is commonplace for many channels.

Membership in Elite Messaging: Telegram Channels

Since it went live on August 14, 2013, the messaging application Telegram has seen major success, both among ordinary users as well as jihadis; but it wasn’t until their launch of “channels” in September 2015, that TRAC began to witness a massive migration from other social media sites, most notably Twitter.

Advantages

Channels work like Twitter on steroids, you become a member, and then you are automatically updated anytime a new item appears on a channel. No need to check it every minute of the day; it simply pings you when new information is available. Only the channel administrator can post to the channel but as a user you can forward any message they post to any one of your contacts. Administrators of one channel can also forward content from a channel they visit to the one they administer.
Since many people were already using Telegram as a messaging application, the proliferation of messages on channels spreads like a virus. Often you will see a channel that has very few members but the posted messages will have 1,000s of views.
Any medium of any file size can be included in a channel message and then downloaded from by channel visitors or users, avoiding pesky YouTube or Just Paste It deletions. You do not have to join a channel to access messages or download content.
Telegram is nimble in use; one can ‘be on-the-go’ so to speak and access their account in many different ways. Telegram can be loaded to your mobile device or used as an application on your laptop or can simply be seen on the internet from any type of browser. One can also log into all points of access simultaneously.

TRAC’s Archive

TRAC has archived 200+ major, mainstream jihadi channels. While many of the channels have Islamic State affiliations, there are an increasing number of channels from other major players in the global jihadi world. From al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) to Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) to Jaysh al-Islam, the rate of membership escalation for each discrete channel is staggering. Within a week’s time, one single Islamic State channel went from 5,000 members to well over 10,000 members. Though it is unclear if what is commonly referred to as “the ISIS fan club” will migrate to Telegram, what is clear is that the hard core disseminators already have.

Jihadi Infrastructure

Nearly half the channels TRAC has archived belong to the Islamic State. Many of them have thousands of members, who seem to regularly access the posted message; messages in these channels get at many as 6,000 views in real time. Therefore, the Islamic State channels are the best example of how jihadis are currently using (and will continue to develop) Telegram as both an operational theater, and as a repository. The Islamic State has begun to create channel infrastructure and templates for each type of content in at least 12 different languages. The notorious Nashir (alternative: Nasher) distribution network has the most distinct matrix within Telegram. Languages include: Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Kurdish, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu.

Planning for the Future

There is also evidence that the Islamic State considers Telegram a permanent part of its future. Their most popular website for video distribution, ISDARAT, has five distinct Telegram channels, each with a corresponding new website that contains different content, tailor-made to its Telegram channel. ISDARAT is well-known and its website is constantly shut down by authorities or vigilante attacks. Thousands of twitter profiles include one version or another of the oft-changing URL. With Telegram’s promise of permanence, and the ability to transfer any type of file via a channel, ISDARAT no longer needs to play hide and seek with its followers.

Protected Repository

Telegram is not just a tool for file sharing but rather it has become “the protected repository” of resources for the Islamic State. The images that follow include the info page for Khilafah News, which shows the number of shared media resources available, as well as a page of both the video and file listings for that channel.

Click to enlarge Click to enlarge Click to enlarge

Screen shots (above): Khilafah New’s Telegram feed nearly one month after establishment. As of 28 October 2015: 1,875 photos shared; 71 video files; 130 data files; 14 voice messages; 816 shared links.

For More on TRAC INSIGHT: Media Outlets of Islamic State

Creation and Background

Image: Screen shot of Telegram’s features, note look very much like Monopoly characters.

The Brothers Durov

Telegram was created by two Russian brothers, Pavel and Nikolai Durov. Pavel is the financial and visionary figure of the company, while Nikolai specializes in the technical and programming aspects. However, Telegram’s website states that the company is actually based in Berlin and holds no geographical or litigious ties to Russia.[1]

The company describes Telegram as an application that serves as a fusion between text messaging and sending e-mails. This is not to say that Telegram offers an e-mail component, rather that the design of the application is one that blends the functions of text messages and e-mails.[2] Furthermore, Telegram is a free service and currently operates as a nonprofit company. It is financed by Pavel Durov’s fund Digital Fortress.[3]

Security

Privacy and security are Telegram’s primary attraction to potential users and are a key reason for its widespread adoption. The company has been seemingly effective in riding the wave of privacy scares following Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding government encroachment on privacy. Notably, Pavel Durov publicly offered Snowden a job, an offer he declined.[4]

For More on Three Insider Leaks

Privacy

Telegram’s website highlights the services’ stance on internet privacy. It states, “At Telegram we think that the two most important components of internet privacy should be:

Protecting your private conversations from snooping third parties, such as officials, employers, etc.
Protecting your personal data from third parties, such as marketers, advertisers, etc.”[5]

Keeping Russian Eyes Off

Pavel Durov later echoed these sentiments when he stated that the prime motivation for creating Telegram was to establish a means of communicating that cannot be accessed by “the Russian security agencies.”[6] It is important to note that Telegram’s target market is a generation that grew up on social media and who currently have a heightened awareness of privacy issues.

End-to-End Encryption

The application boasts about its end-to-end encryption and the fact that its programming is not veiled, but is open-source and available to users. Telegram is so confident in its encryption that it has offered $300,000 rewards to the first individual to crack the encryption.[7] In an interview with TechCrunch, Pavel Durov stated that the encryption has not been cracked, but a developer received $100,000 for discovering a significant vulnerability.[8] Nevertheless, skeptics state it is only a matter of time before Telegram’s encryption system is breached.

User Information is Stored

Telegram provides an environment that is genuinely respectful of the user’s privacy, as opposed to other major social media and internet services such as Facebook and Google. Telegram posits that merely offering users options to make their posts or information “private” does not mean that the information itself, which is shared through given service, is protected. Conversely, Telegram argues that many sites use these methods to quell users’ privacy concerns, but user information is stored, “mined” for targeted advertising and remains prone to being shared with third parties.[9]

Self-Destruct Feature

The “self-destruct” option is particularly useful for those who move around a lot and forget passwords or have limited use of the internet for long periods of time. There are privacy settings for each individual account that can either set messages to self-destruct after a certain period of time (see Secret Chat below) or accounts to self-destruct after chosen periods of inactivity.

Channels

On September 22, 2015, Telegram announced channels as a way for users to “broadcast” their postings to a wide audience.[10] Prior to adding channels, Telegram served groups of up to 200 people using a broadcast feature to share information. Although Telegram is adding functionality to channels, it appears that the biggest attractions of the channel feature has been its feature of having an unlimited number of members, as well as non-member access to channel content.

Not surprisingly, the channel feature has become quite popular with jihadis. Although Telegram is still technically a messaging application, channels allow users to produce and share content with ever-growing audiences.

Downloads

The messaging only version of Telegram was enormously popular in the Middle East. In December 2013, merely four months after Telegram’s launch, it was reported that users in the Middle East downloaded Telegram over 100,000 times in one day. This surge dwarfed previous Telegram downloads in the Middle East that had been approximately 2,000 per day.[11] Clearly not all of its earlier users in the Middle East were jihadis, especially since the militant and political ecosystem of the region is vastly different today than it was at the end of 2013. Nevertheless, the it has proven to be very attractive as an outlet for jihadi propaganda.

Promoting your Channel

Many of the larger jihadi channels have attracted thousands of members, and the view count for each message suggests some channels are visited more by non-members than by members. At least three channels have well over 10,000 members. Back on Twitter, Twitter account holders are pushing their followers to Telegram – they tweet and retweet information about how to get the Telegram app and which channels to join. Others on Twitter have implored their followers to join their Telegram channels. They rarely state that they are motivated by their next, imminent suspension. But for followers who repeatedly search for “shout-outs” that point them to the new accounts of their favorite jihadis, the reason to switch to Telegram is apparent.

An Islamic State Nashir channel posted an infographic on how to spread material from a channel.

The image announced: “To support the channel, do not copy published material but follow these steps:

Choose the desired post
Press ‘Forward’
Then choose the future recipient”

Transferring Funds

A Virtual Hawala System

Secret Chats

It has always been possible to transfer funds via text message – by using services that just require a person to establish their identity and provide a transaction number. Telegram makes that type of exchange more appealing because the encryption and self-destruct features of the “Secret Chat” limit access to the information. And for even more anonymity, bitcoin and other crypto-currencies don’t even require that an individual establish there identity.

Untraceable

Law enforcement agencies have been emphasizing the potential for bitcoin to be used in all manner of criminal enterprises. But in the US, by obtaining a warrant, they are typically able to get data from unencrypted conversations. Telegram has asserted that they will not comply with such warrants – that private conversations are private. However, even if Telegram changes its policy to allow warrant access, the Secret Chat function deletes any information passed via the self destruct feature making it the virtual Hawala system of Telegram.

For More on Cyber Crime Nexus: Liberty Reserve, Freedom Hosting and Silk Road

For More on Concealment Practices Among Cybercriminals & Terrorists

Using ‘Bots’

In addition to transactions that involve merely exchanging information, there are bots designed to facilitate the actual transfer of crypto-currency. The most publicized is Julia – an app dependent bot developed by GetGems to move funds to and from Coinbase accounts (Coinbase is a bitcoin “bank”).

The Telebit Bot

Another well-established bot – that operates entirely within Telegram – is Telebit. It is accessed by searching Telegram to find the bot (by entering “telebit” in the search box, then selecting @Telebit (Telebit Sender). The result looks like an empty chat, but as shown in the following images, sending the message “help” produces all of the information needed to access all the Telebit functions.

Creating Bots

Telegram encourages individuals to create new bots and there are already quite a few of these fund-transfer bots. The following Tweet is from the creator of another Telegram bot, who has developed a way to transfer the bitcoin value of phone minutes via a Telegram chat.

Numerous Outlets for Asset Transfer on Telegram

There are undoubtedly numerous other bots and informal fund transfer systems operating on Telegram. The use of Telegram and other messaging applications to transfer funds (and other assets of value) is expected to be a rapidly changing environment that will require constant monitoring. TRAC will provide regular updates regarding the rapid adoption of Telegram, as well as changes in the way it is utilized in support of terrorist communication and operations.

Cross Section of TRAC’s Archive

TRAC’s archive is consistently expanding, the 200+ channels have an estimated 150,000 ever-increasing total membership levels. The following is a cross-section of some of the more interesting accounts from the archive.

Image: 07 October 2015, Screen shot of Tweet advertising AQAP’s Telegram channel.

Must Be Directed to Channel Addresses

Its very important to note that Telegram channels are not easy to just “stumble upon,” account names are case sensitive and there is no autofill function to help one search for channels. Jihadis have been passing Telegram channel “addresses” so to speak a number of ways, advertising on Twitter accounts, advertising on specific Blogs like https://ansarukhilafah.wordpress.com/news-sources/, or advertising on specific websites like ISDARAT (mentioned above in Infrastructure section). Because Telegram was already widely used as an encrypted messaging application, it can be assumed that direct messaging was the initial way to spread new channel accounts. Like Twitter, the hash tag #function is operational on Telegram but the hashtags only work if you already subscribe to a channel.

Telegram Channel	Affiliation	Membership 10.29.2015	Icons
IS_new_2	IS	9,904
IS_new	IS	3,310
a3maqagency	IS	10,672
nasherislamicstate	IS – Arabic	11,195
Is_news_ru	IS – Russian	2,410
nashirislamicstateDE	IS – German	401
nashirislamicstateBN	IS – Bengali	240
nashirislamicstateINA	IS – Indonesian	1,451
nashirislamicstateEN	IS – English	1,264
nasherislamicstateFR	IS – French	424
nashirislamicstateKURDI	IS – Kurdish	111
nashirislamicstateIT	IS – Italian	4
nashierislamicstateBOS	IS – Bosnian	275
nasherislamicstateTR	IS – Turkish	287
nashirislamicstateUR	IS – Urdu	15
isyemen	IS – Yemen	858
ICA_ES	IS – Hacking	847
DabiQ	IS	3,337
isdarat_News	IS	786
isdarat1	IS	2,709
isdarat_is	IS	521
isdaraty	IS	615
isdarat_islamicstate	IS	1,319
KhilafahNews	IS	1,787
FURSANUpload	IS	3,349
Nashr4k	IS	1,112
azalkelafa11	IS	1,895
DarAlislam	IS	1,015
AQAPTV	AQAP	2,760
Rayareporter	ASL	726
allewaa6	FSA	25
AlnasarArmy	Al-Nasar Army	185
jaishalislam01	Jaysh al-Islam	2,047
GIMF_Channel	AQ aligned	1,072
doaat	Varied	6,369
JihadnewsCh	Varied	6,579
mujahednews	Varied	2,203
almonaseronn	Detainees	3,009
sawtaljihad	Varied	1,370
KhilafahTree	IS	1,093

[1] https://telegram.org/faq (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/technology/once-celebrated-in-russia-programmer-pavel-durov-chooses-exile.html?_r=0)

[5] https://telegram.org/faq (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[5] http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/24/telegram-saw-8m-downloads-after-whatsapp-got-acquired/ (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[6] https://telegram.org/crypto_contest (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[7] http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/24/telegram-saw-8m-downloads-after-whatsapp-got-acquired/ (Access Date: October 21, 2015); https://telegram.org/blog/crowdsourcing-a-more-secure-future (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[8] [8] https://telegram.org/faq (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[9] https://twitter.com/telegram/status/646268856684707840 (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[10] http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/27/meet-telegram-a-secure-messaging-app-from-the-founders-of-vk-russias-largest-social-network/ (Access Date: October 21, 2015).

[11] https://news.bitcoin.com/getgems-joining-telebit-bringing/ (Access Date: October 28, 2015)