Five accomplices of telephone scammers were detained in St. Petersburg

Employees of the main department of the Russian Interior Ministry in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region have detained five attackers who had been working on the technical support of fraudulent call centers for a year on the instructions of Ukrainian supervisors. This was reported on November 25 by the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Irina Volk.

"At the moment four episodes of illegal activity on the territory of the city of St. Petersburg and more than 100 - in different regions of Russia have been established. Criminal cases have been initiated on the signs of a crime under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation," - wrote Volk in her Telegram-channel.

She specified that the detained five attackers are from 19 to 25 years old. According to the investigation, one of them about a year ago was looking for a source of income in the shadow segment of the Network and met with foreign curators there. They were looking for people capable of ensuring the constant operation of equipment for spoofing numbers when calling Russians from Ukrainian call centers. In addition, it was necessary to cash out the money that was transferred from the accounts of fraud victims to drop cards and then transfer it to the curators, including through cryptocurrency exchanges.

A young man rented an office in one of the business centers to house the equipment. The participants of the criminal group distributed the duties. Thus, some of them administered the dropper accounts, while others ensured the operation of the system from a technical point of view. A 19-year-old female defendant was in charge of resolving issues with banks; when blocking accounts, she called credit organizations and introduced herself as a client. For each call the girl was paid from 500 to 1 thousand rubles.

To disguise criminal activity, the alleged organizer of the group constantly changed the addresses of offices and every day moved SIM cards in the equipment.

Volk added that two defendants are now in custody, while the rest have chosen a ban on certain actions as a measure of restraint. Law enforcers continue the preliminary investigation.

Earlier, on November 12, in Moscow detained 18 fraudsters who carried out a series of scams in the field of car loans. In 2021-2022, these attackers received car loans, providing banks with false documents on income and work. After receiving the money, they bought expensive cars and resold them, but did not repay the loans. The criminal group is suspected of more than 20 crimes, the amount of damage exceeded 100 million rubles.