Inside the Illicit Market for Abortion Pills on Telegram

If you search for the phrase “abortion pills” on the messaging service Telegram, an array of public channels and groups pop up. Some have names like “Buy Abortion Pills” or “Abortion pills Mifepristone Misoprostol” while others offer advice on symptoms and best practices “after the pregnancy comes out.” On May 3, a post on “ABORTION PILLS MARKET” included a photo of a blister pack labeled as abortion pills, alongside the caption, “We are legit.”

There are currently more than 200 public groups and channels on Telegram that explicitly mention selling abortion pills in their name or description, a WIRED investigation found. At the end of May, the last month for which we have complete data, 57 of the 211 groups we uncovered were active, with at least one message sent in that month.

Activity found on the platform related to selling abortion pills traces back to at least 2016, and many of the channels and groups cater to customers around the world. In the year since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, though, there’s a new focus on marketing to people in the United States, according to WIRED’s review of roughly 47,000 public messages scraped from these channels. And in general, public activity on Telegram related to abortion pills has been exploding since last summer.

Telegram did not immediately return WIRED’s request for comment about the sale of abortifacients or other drugs on the platform.

Shady drug sellers and scams are nothing new on digital platforms. A nearly universal experience of the early consumer internet, after all, was receiving spam emails claiming to offer penis enlargement pills. And in the decades since, dark web markets have fueled illegal distribution of drugs globally. Like other prescription drugs, though, abortifacients are legal in some countries but not others. Furthermore, in some places they can be prescribed for certain purposes but not others, leaving patients to potentially seek ways to fill in the gaps for their own care. In the US, access to reproductive care, including abortifacients, varies widely from state to state.

Despite the clear uptick in activity on Telegram related to abortion pills, researchers say that they don’t see evidence of a massive new movement to illegally sell abortifacients to Americans. Kat Green, an abortion access researcher and founder of the online data analysis platform Endora, says that illegal sales of abortifacients, and corresponding questions about legitimacy and safety, aren’t currently central topics in US abortion access work. In part, this is likely because it’s still legal in many US states for patients to get abortion pills by mail. And prescribed use of these pills, also known as medication abortion, is markedly on the rise in the US. But as new and pending legal challenges threaten to further curtail access, illicit sales could eventually expand.

Analysis of frequently used phrases in the Telegram message trove WIRED collected shows that a large number of these groups and channels don’t just claim to sell abortion pills. Phrases like “weight loss,” “muscle mass,” and “erection pill” were among the 10 most popular two-word phrases that appeared in the data set. And thousands of additional messages mentioned “benzos,” “painkillers,” “Xanax,” “weed,” “coke,” and “guns.” In all, at least a quarter of the channels appear to be hawking more than just abortifacients.

Hundreds of messages from the data that contained pricing information indicate that the average cost of purchasing a purported pack of abortion pills on Telegram is currently $135.

WIRED’s investigation also indicates that the abortion pill ecosystem on Telegram is likely a small world. Analysis of the members and administrators who send messages in the groups and channels shows that many of the accounts are likely controlled by the same individuals. For example, a user going by the name Dr. Pooja Gupta has sent 1,500 messages across nine channels or groups advertising the sale of abortion pills. Dr. Pooja uses a WhatsApp number that is referenced by administrators in 14 additional channels. And some of them use similar names like Doctor Jain and Doctor Reenu. Many of these messages also referenced the same website.

After joining several of Dr. Pooja Gupta’s channels, WIRED reporters received a private Telegram message from a user known as Manisha Gupta offering medication abortion for $90. When WIRED reporters expressed interest in making a purchase, a person prepared the order and sent an image showing a blister pack of pills, and an envelope with that day’s date as well as the address WIRED provided for shipment. The return address written on the envelope was a location in Mumbai, India.

Still messaging on Telegram, a person then sent account information for Punjab National Bank and directed WIRED to submit payment through a service called Remitly. WIRED reporters did not complete the transaction. When asked whether they have had more US-based customers in recent months, the person said, “since new laws I am send to America much more.”

Some groups on Telegram have US-specific names or descriptions, like “Abortion Pills in Republican States,” but most have more generic names and claim to deliver to dozens of countries. For instance, one of the largest and most active channels in the data set dates from August 2021 and is apparently specifically geared toward delivering abortion pills to Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, and the Philippines—all countries where legal access to abortion is restricted.

Last June, researchers from the security firm DarkOwl noticed a sharp increase in discussions on the dark web about connecting abortion-seekers in the US with abortifacients and other resources. Some vendors that already sold illegal drugs said they would begin selling medication abortion as well. At the time, though, the researchers said that they didn’t actually see abortion pills widely available for sale on most dark web markets, but that “they are available for purchase via threads in discussion forums, as well as classified-style advertisements on transient paste services.”

Ian Gray, director of analysis and research at the security firm Flashpoint, says that turning points like the Covid-19 pandemic or the fall of Roe for the US can spark trends in digital scams and illicit online sales. But a survey Gray conducted for WIRED of dark web advertising targeted at the US over the last year did not reveal a dramatic spike in content related to abortifacients.

“At a high level, it’s difficult to identify a significant increase in chatter related to abortion pills due to Roe v Wade being overturned last year,” Gray says. He notes, though, that “there are a limited number of posts within the past year in marketplaces, which may indicate demand. Most posts, at least on Twitter and some within Telegram, are in Brazilian Portuguese, likely due to a ban on abortion pills.”

As with many medical procedures, the stakes are extremely high in medication abortion. But the patchwork of laws and access in the US could make the landscape particularly fraught for patients in need who may eventually turn to illicit markets out of desperation.