Pensioner from Moscow transferred 87 million rubles to fraudsters in two months

In Moscow, phone scammers defrauded a pensioner of more than 87 million rubles. This was reported on January 2 by the press service of the Prosecutor's Office of the capital.

The criminals, disguised as employees of the pension fund, called the man allegedly to verify personal data and forced him to name the access code to "Gosusluga" received by SMS. Then he was contacted by a woman who introduced herself as an employee of the portal and said that his personal account had been hacked. She lied that she had written a statement to the FSB on his behalf.

"Naturally, this was immediately followed by a call from a "law enforcer" who persuaded the victim to take part in the operation to catch the criminals, assuring him that everything was under control and there was a clear plan. For persuasiveness, the 'operative' called via video link and demonstrated his official ID," - noted in the Telegram-channel.

Then, thinking that he was transferring money to safe accounts, the pensioner sent more than 80 million rubles to the fraudsters.

However, the criminals did not stop there. They said that the man would be able to return the money after reactivating the accounts in six months. But if it was necessary to take the funds faster, he could "thank" the people involved in his case. The man agreed and handed over another 5 million rubles to the courier sent by the fraudsters.

Only when on the day promised by the swindlers, the money did not return to the pensioner's accounts, and the correspondence was deleted, the man realized that he had become a victim of deception, and turned to the police.

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Earlier, December 26, the Interior Ministry urged citizens to be vigilant and not to trust strangers on the phone or through other means of communication. It was specified that cases of arson and bombings, in which fraudsters involve the elderly and young people, promising money, "return of stolen goods" or intimidating criminal cases, are becoming more frequent.