The Ministry of Internal Affairs stopped the mass supply of SIM cards for use by fraudsters in the Leningrad region

In the Leningrad region, law enforcement officers detained the head of a company that organized the supply of thousands of SIM cards for the needs of telephone fraudsters. This was announced on June 25 by the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Irina Volk in the Telegram channel.

"It has been previously established that the criminal scheme was organized by a resident of the Vsevolozhsky district of the Leningrad region, the head of a multi—brand dealer of mobile operators. He found an ad on the darknet about the mass purchase of active Russian phone numbers by call centers operating in Ukraine," she said.

The attacker also involved his friends and a relative in the criminal scheme. Under the pretext of selling in retail outlets, the defendant received batches of SIM cards from mobile operators, which were then activated with the introduction of fictitious data about the alleged foreign owners.

Then the activated SIM cards were sold to accomplices of telephone scammers, who ensured the operation of the SIM boxes and replaced foreign numbers with Russian ones.

"According to operational data, since January 2024, illegal business participants have sold more than 32.5 thousand SIM cards, using which about a thousand IT crimes have been committed against Russians," said Volk.

The disclosure of the scheme prevented more than 15,000 fraudulent calls from foreign call centers.

"In the framework of a previously initiated criminal case on the grounds of a crime under Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Theft". — Ed.), police officers and investigators conducted a series of searches," the publication says.

Currently, measures are being taken to identify all the episodes and accomplices of the crime.

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On June 11, Danil Filippov, Deputy head of the Investigative Department of the Russian Interior Ministry, announced the liquidation of call centers in Belarus and Uzbekistan that had deceived Russians.

On May 6, law enforcement officers in the Bryansk region detained four local residents of the region who provided the work of illegal communication hubs for the acts of fraudsters. It was reported that the attackers had been servicing special equipment for several months under the guidance of anonymous curators.