In Moscow, a pensioner spent a year communicating with fraudsters and gave them 90 million rubles

In Moscow, an 86-year-old pensioner did not suspect for a year that she was communicating with fraudsters and transferred them almost 90 million rubles. This was reported by the Moscow Prosecutor's Office in its Telegram channel on Friday, November 29.

In November 2023, the woman received a call from an unknown number and introduced herself as an investigator, explaining that she was "engaged" by con artists and the pensioner could lose all her money.

"It is necessary to urgently withdraw all the money and transfer them to safe accounts," - quotes the words of telephone fraudsters capital prosecutor's office.

It is noted that for the whole year the victim, communicating with pseudo-bankers and pseudo-law enforcement officers, did not guess that these are fraudsters, and each time transferred the amounts named by them - from 300 thousand to 23 million rubles.

After the pensioner gave the fraudsters all her money, including savings from the sale of an apartment in Moscow and shares, she turned to the police.

"Having realized that she became a victim of deceit, the pensioner appealed to law enforcement authorities", - added in the department.

Establishment of all circumstances - on control in the Prosecutor's office.

On the same day, VTB Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Business Department Nikita Chugunov reported that the number of fraud cases related to the installation of remote access programs - SpyMax virus via WhatsApp messenger (owned by Meta, whose activities are banned in Russia) has increased in Russia.

According to Chugunov, the scammers present themselves as employees of state or commercial organizations, including specialists from Mosenergosbyt, polyclinics, housing and utilities institutions. Under the guise of checking payment, restoring access to resources or providing technical assistance, they call potential victims and offer to go to WhatsApp for a video call and ask them to turn on a screen demonstration, allegedly to solve a technical problem. Then they send him a link to download the app, passing it off as an official service.

He emphasized that the surest way to avoid fraud is not to communicate with strangers, not to follow unknown links they send, not to download applications from them.