Find and neutralize: 80,000 people are involved in dropshipping every year

Every year, 80,000 people, Russians and foreigners, are involved in criminal schemes to cash money using bank cards, said Olga Polyakova, deputy governor of the Bank of Russia. The problem is getting bigger, as more and more people agree to participate in illegal actions for the sake of easy money. Details - in the material "Izvestia".

Vague interpretation

Russian legislation lacks a definition of the term "drop", the interviewed experts point out. In essence, these are persons who authorize the use of their accounts to transfer or withdraw money; provide details and data for access to the account; issue plastic cards that are passed to fraudsters with all pin codes. This mechanism is used in a long chain of fraud.

Such operations may be completely illegal or in the "gray" zone, says Maria Bakakina, adviser of criminal law practice of the Moscow City Law Office "Sokolov, Trusov and Partners".

- For example, both remote fraud, i.e. deception of conditional pensioners or participation in schemes related to drug trafficking), and semi-legal P2P-trading in cryptocurrency, when it seems that no one was going to deceive anyone, but the state control over the legality and security of financial transactions is much more complicated, - she says.

Because of the complication of the chain of withdrawals, transfers between banks and the transportation of cash by couriers, it is very difficult to identify the organizers, said Alexei Voylukov, MBA professor of business practice in digital finance at the Presidential Academy.

- Withdrawal of Br10 thousand from 100 cards does not look suspicious. Especially since the cards can be located in completely different regions, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. Investigation of fraud cases is further complicated by the fact that drops are usually not familiar with the fraudsters, but people who once sold information about themselves, issued a card, etc.," he argues.

According to the expert, this phenomenon is characteristic not only for Russia, but also for other countries.

In T-bank told about the dropping scheme related to the sale of cryptocurrency:

- The fraudster contacts the seller of digital currency under the guise of a buyer, negotiates a deal and receives details for the transfer. The criminal sends these details to the victim - and persuades them to transfer money there under various pretexts. For example, he says that it is a safe account that will protect savings from theft. The victim transfers money to the unsuspecting seller of cryptocurrency. In return, the victim honestly sends bitcoins to the fraudster and unwittingly becomes an intermediary in the crime.

In a similar way, people are used if they try to withdraw money from an illegal online casino. "In the latter case, the victims are usually children," the T-bank specified.

Area of responsibility

If the law protects the victims of fraudsters, and they are almost always recognized as victims, the droppers, which fraudsters deceitfully involved in their criminal scheme, are usually recognized as accomplices and brought to criminal responsibility, notes Ilya Vasilchuk, a trial lawyer, an expert on the security of electronic transactions and real estate transactions, public figure.

- Moreover, in accordance with Article 1102 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, victims of fraudsters who transferred money to accounts belonging to the dropshippers have the right to recover funds from them in their favor," he specifies.

According to the T-bank representative, not only money stolen by fraudsters, but also money that passes through intermediaries for serious crimes. "Often it is earnings on arms trade, drugs or terrorism financing," - recalled in the press service of the bank.

Vulnerable categories

The lion's share of drops falls on children and migrants. Yulia Makarenko, deputy director of the Banking Institute for Development, believes that targeted work with these categories can significantly reduce the number of those involved and make life more difficult for fraudsters.

- Children mostly become dropshippers out of ignorance, without realizing how bad it is. Fraudsters, involving children, put pressure on the positive: the desire to be good (to help cash money from the ATM), the desire to earn the first money and buy something for themselves or their relatives, the desire to appear mature and not to inform their parents that someone in an online game politely asks for the details of mom's card. Here the state needs to work gently, to educate at school and at home, in social networks and the media, especially if the child has the first children's card. There should be a hotline for teenagers similar to psychological help. Parents, in turn, should periodically monitor the list of transactions and track the unusual (arrival and immediate withdrawal of unknown amounts)," she comments.

The story is fundamentally different with migrants.

- Regular movement in organized groups between bank branches, withdrawing cash for "agency" fees clearly indicates illegal actions. These are adults. Punitive measures should be applied to them first of all, up to real terms or deportation to their homeland," the financier added.

And according to Voylukov, the most common category of droppers are students.

- As a rule, people do it consciously, but they do not understand the consequences of their actions. In any contract for obtaining a bank card it is written that it is forbidden to give it to other people as well as confidential information related to it. Dropping is a dangerous and criminally punishable act, fraught with 8 years in prison under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud)," he told the publication.

How to help

The most effective way to combat drops as accomplices of fraudsters is a comprehensive approach, the respondents of the publication agree.

- Banks are conducting active educational work, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in September 2024 proposed to criminalize this activity. However, the bill has not been publicized, and there is no information about the fate of the initiative. If nothing is done, the number of drops will only grow," comments Maria Bakakina.

The lawyer sees the solution to the problem in a clear definition in the legislation of who falls under the category of droppers, the establishment of a direct ban on this activity, and then - in the introduction of measures of real administrative and criminal responsibility.

Voylukov believes that dropping can only be defeated by active work with young people, who are not always responsible for their financial obligations.

- Social advertising is good. But it is necessary to tell more! And if the majority of young people refuse to participate in dubious operations, such operations will become economically ineffective for the majority, and fraudsters will have to abandon them, - he is sure.

To combat the withdrawal of funds through fake accounts of dropships in the summer of 2024 amended the legislation, according to which banks are obliged to suspend transfers for two days, if the information about the recipient of the money got into the database of dubious accounts.

- If the sender bank or the recipient bank makes such a transfer, it will be obliged to reimburse the victim of fraudsters the amount of lost money at its own expense," Vasilchuk said.

Sber reported that the bank cooperates with other credit organizations and law enforcement agencies to timely block money in the accounts of dropsies so that they cannot cash out the stolen funds.

--- Thanks to a clearly worked out mechanism of interaction with law enforcement and judicial authorities, as well as with other banks, Sber returned more than one billion rubles to Russians from the accounts of droppers in 2024. Sber's free open portal on cybersecurity "Kibrarius" contains useful information on who are droppers and recommendations on how not to become a participant in a fraudulent scheme with cash-out," they said.

According to a representative of T-bank, the organization works proactively.

- We try to help people before they are recruited into dropships. We conduct training among the bank's clients and residents of Russia: we tell about drops and consequences for those who sell a bank card to fraudsters. We have also launched a system of drop monitoring, which identifies drops among clients even before money is credited to their accounts. The system analyzes customer behavior by a thousand patterns and compares them with the drop portrait. For example, it records that the card was reissued to a different number and entered the application from a new phone. If there are many coincidences, bank employees conduct additional investigation or immediately limit remote service, - said in the credit organization.

According to T-bank, these measures allowed to block more than 140,000 drops last year.

The banking community, the Bank of Russia, and Rosfinmonitoring are not sitting idly by - they are creating legal mechanisms to stop the activities of dropships, and technical means that allow timely detection and suppression of dropship operations, and, most importantly, to work on the prevention of people's involvement in dropships, says Maxim Semov, Chairman of the ARB Committee for Improving Financial Literacy, an expert of the NIFI project of the Ministry of Finance of Russia "Moifinance.rf".

The reaction of the banking community is quite effective, the expert believes. In the last two years, mechanisms have emerged, including those using neural networks and artificial intelligence, which make it possible to promptly identify signs of dropper operations in clients' transactions and apply control measures, the expert summarizes.