It takes about six months to initiate phone fraud cases.

It can take up to six months for victims of telephone fraud to initiate criminal proceedings, Izvestia found out after interviewing lawyers and victims.

Pushback: Russians are increasingly complaining about persistent calls from debt collectors

In the first quarter of 2025 alone, the FSSP received 8.5 complaints about illegal actions by loan arrears collectors.

So, a criminal case on fraud was initiated at the request of a Muscovite Elena (name changed) five months after contacting the police. The attackers, posing as her former employer, an FSB major and an employee of Rosfinmonitoring, forced her not to take out several loans and transfer them to a secure account. Elena lost 3 million rubles.

The head of the criminal practice of Sokolov, Trusov and Partners Law Firm, lawyer Anna Minenkova, spoke about a similar situation faced by her client. Fraudsters forced a woman to sell a car and an apartment in Moscow.

"They also convinced her to apply to credit institutions for large-scale loans, and tried to force her to cash out the funds from her cards, but by pure chance they failed to withdraw all the money," she said.

The crime was committed in August-September 2024, a criminal case was initiated only on the fact of apartment fraud, and only six months later it was possible to initiate criminal proceedings on an episode of car fraud.

"The episodes of attempted loan fraud have not been initiated so far," the lawyer said.

Another lawyer said that a case was being opened, but against an unidentified person. Such cases are suspended after 2-4 months due to the search for the accused, who does not exist.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Numbered background: Victims of phone scams have been waiting for cases to be filed for months