Phone scammers "exchanged" 30 million pensioners for tickets of the "bank of jokes"

In Moscow, a 75-year-old pensioner became a victim of a multi-stage telephone fraud scheme and lost almost 30 million rubles. This was announced on January 31 by the press service of the prosecutor's office of the capital.

"A 75-year-old Muscovite woman received a message allegedly from a polyclinic asking her to confirm her attachment to a medical facility by writing an SMS code. Without thinking, she sent the code and unknowingly launched a chain of fraudulent calls," the department's Telegram channel reported.

It is noted that almost immediately after that, she began receiving messages about an allegedly unauthorized login to an account on the public services portal with phone numbers for feedback. The pensioner called back to one of the numbers and entered into a conversation with a "representative of a financial organization," who said that a power of attorney had been issued on her behalf, and unknown persons had gained access to bank accounts.

Later, a false law enforcement officer joined the conversation. The frightened woman told him about her savings, which were kept in a safe deposit box. The scammers convinced the pensioner that the money needed to be urgently "checked." Acting on the instructions of the callers, the victim took the cash from the safe deposit box and transferred the currency to the arrived courier at the specified address.

After some time, the scammers contacted the woman again and sent a courier to her, who allegedly returned the money after a "check." The pensioner put the received bills back into the safe deposit box, without suspecting substitution. The deception was revealed only after a conversation with her husband.

Having decided to check the contents of the cell, the pensioner and her husband found souvenir banknotes instead of real money, which looked like banknotes of various denominations. After that, the family contacted the law enforcement agencies.

Logged out of the chat: fraud in foreign messengers has decreased significantly

What measures have affected this and what new tricks can be expected from intruders?

On January 29, 10 sim box operators accused of fraud were detained in Moscow. It was clarified that the investigators had opened two criminal cases under Part 3 of Article 274.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Illegal use of a subscriber terminal for passing traffic or a virtual telephone exchange").

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