"You are my brother": Ukrainian telephone scammers rob residents of allied Estonia
Ukrainian phone fraud in Estonia is reaching a new level. Previously, Russian-speaking pensioners were mainly the target of criminals, but today native speakers of the Estonian language work in call centers under the auspices of the Kiev special services: now anyone can become a victim. As a result of the actions of telephone scammers, Estonian residents lose millions of dollars. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
How did a Ukrainian fraudster get perfect Estonian?
Every year, hundreds of new residents of Estonia become victims of telephone scams. Recently, the prosecutor's office of the republic said that a particularly large case was being "brought to the final stage": four alleged key figures associated with call centers in Ukraine had been identified. However, according to Prosecutor Juergen Hyve, the financial capabilities of the organizers allow them to live almost anywhere in the world, which significantly complicates the investigation and detention of the perpetrators.
Hannes Kelt, head of the Cyber and Economic Crimes Department of the Estonian Police Department, adds that international operations against such groups take years and require constant data exchange between law enforcement agencies, telecommunications companies and banks in different countries. Differences in national legislation and bureaucratic procedures also do not contribute to the speed of collaboration. At the same time, the closure of individual call centers or the detention of performers does not lead to the cessation of fraudulent activities - new structures quickly appear in place of the liquidated structures.
The Ukrainian police admit that fraud networks have spread throughout the country. "In principle, it is impossible to say that any city can be such a capital. Today the fraudulent center is located there, tomorrow it may already be in another place. Media coverage of operations to neutralize call centers in specific cities may give the impression of some kind of concentration," says Artem Oleshchenko, a representative of the Ukrainian cyber police. According to him, now fraudsters often take their call centers outside of Ukraine — directly to the territory of the countries they rob, in particular to Poland.
"In early March of this year, Ukrainian and Latvian police officers managed to expose and detain a criminal group that had lured more than 50,000 euros from Latvian residents," reports Hannes Kelt. We are talking about a group whose representatives called residents under the guise of the Latvian police. "Scammers can develop separate communication algorithms for different age groups," explains Oleshchenko. — If Google translation is needed for this, then they know how to do it. There are even relevant trainings in large criminal organizations."
According to Kelt, in addition to the actual telephone "divorces", representatives of call centers are constantly searching in the Baltic countries for those who are ready to become a drop. "The fact that the number of drops has increased significantly over the past year indicates that it is no longer possible for fraudsters to automatically transfer money immediately to their accounts. The criminal is forced to invest in people, trust them, risk money, and so on," Kelt said.
In particular, law enforcement officials in Estonia are concerned that fraudulent calls have been carried out en masse in the Estonian language. "This means that people who speak Estonian have come to work in call centers in Ukraine and other countries," concludes Hannes Kelt. His colleague Jaagup Toompuu, head of the Economic Crimes Investigation Department of the Estonian Police, clarifies: "We noticed the first experiments with conversations in Estonian at the beginning of 2025. At first, we used Google Translate, but since about April, there have been fluent speakers." According to Toompuu, last year, fraudsters most often presented themselves in Estonian by employees of the State Health Insurance Fund, the Elektrilevi electricity supply company or the Social Insurance Department.
"Jumped off" at the last moment
The scammers repeatedly called even the police, including the landlines of employees. High—ranking police officer Hannes Yalg said that in one such case, his colleagues received a series of calls to different workplaces. This allowed the police to understand that the numbers of their station were included in the call center database. "We took the call to understand how their strategy was working," Yalg explained. One of the police officers "believed" the scammers who said that her relative had been in an accident abroad, and pretended to agree to transfer money for his treatment. "When we were asked at which address to come for the money, we gave the address of our site. After a pause, they apparently checked the address in Google Maps, followed by angry abuse and reproaches that we were wasting their time," Yalg said.
A few months ago, Andrus Vaher, one of the heads of the renowned Estonian publishing house Aripäev, became a victim of telephone fraud. His story is one of thousands of similar ones, but several disturbing features were found in it: not only did the criminals speak Estonian fluently, but one of them even managed to convincingly impersonate a policeman. According to the victim, the "wiring" began with the fact that he received a call from an unknown Estonian number and was informed about the need to replace the electric meter in the apartment. To confirm the consent, the man was asked to enter the PIN code at the sent link. Despite his doubts, he entered the code anyway. And after the conversation ended, I immediately checked my bank account — the money was in place.
But a few minutes later, Andrus Vacher received another call, this time ostensibly from the bank. A "senior cybersecurity specialist" reported that the scammers had created a fictitious Smart-ID (an electronic authentication service generally accepted in Estonia) and were trying to gain access to his bank accounts. The publisher was asked "for security reasons" to urgently "erase the Smart ID" and give evidence to the police. For this, he was offered to go to WhatsApp (owned by Meta, which is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), where a false policeman contacted the Blogger. He began to give instructions on what actions needed to be performed in order to "secure the account." According to Vacher, during the video call, the man showed his ID and looked exactly the same as one law enforcement officer from a photo on the official website of the Estonian police. "There was an ordinary policeman on the screen, speaking pure Estonian," the victim says.
At first, the publisher obeyed the commands of the "policeman", but then, cutting off the call in mid-sentence, he urgently contacted his bank. There they confirmed to him that he had become a victim of crooks. Literally at the last minute, the bank managed to prevent the withdrawal of the Waher's money to another account. However, it was still too early for the publisher to be happy. As Jaagup Toompuu explains, even if the theft is prevented, it is already dangerous that the scammers have collected information about the person. "In addition to the phone number and personal code, they can learn a lot about you: about your children, spouse, real estate, business. They keep this data — they can sell it on the side, or they can try to use it again in a few years," Toompuu notes.
Having become interested in this case, the journalists of the Estonian state television and radio company ERR launched their own investigation. They wanted to find out how people who are fluent in Estonian, which is not the most widely spoken language in the world, ended up in Ukrainian call centers. The journalists found a job offer in a fraudulent call center on social media and contacted the recruiter under the guise of job seekers. He immediately warned that we were not talking about an "officially licensed company" — and therefore there would be no legal agreements. Later, the recruiter said that their "company" was located in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and promised to arrange a conversation with an Estonian who would check his knowledge of the language. The conversation was postponed several times, explaining that employees were "on the phone" and "working with clients." As a result, the "manager" of the fraudulent organization reported that seven Estonian residents "work" for them.
"Ultra-professional criminal business"
The Estonian "employees" of fraudulent call centers are well aware that, according to the laws of their native country, they face a prison term of up to five years, and therefore they try not to advertise their cooperation with Ukrainian scammers. The journalists, who managed to communicate with the call center employee in Estonian, tried to find out any more valuable details from him. And the recruiter said that the center needs not only Estonians, but also Finns, Lithuanians and people with knowledge of German. According to him, a call center in Odessa is dealing with Germany, and native speakers of free Estonian, Finnish and Lithuanian languages are expected in Uzhgorod. The conditions are free accommodation and travel, a fixed rate of about €1,600 per month and a percentage of "closed" transactions.
According to Estonian police officer Jaagup Toompuu, it is possible to trace the milestones of the development of illegal business. "At first, they called in Russian, especially where there are many Russian-speaking residents. When this audience was "processed", they began to hire citizens of specific countries. The same thing is happening now in Finland, Lithuania, Italy and Spain — in almost all EU countries," Toompuu said. He added that today Ukrainian call centers represent a "super-professional criminal business," and each has its own specialization. Some, for example, purposefully attack entrepreneurs. "Before each attack, fraudsters have been collecting information from open sources and social networks for months," Toompuu explains.
Last year, the Estonian police recorded a record damage from fraud — €29 million. They extorted this money from 3,685 residents of Estonia. In part, this amount is due precisely to the fact that company executives and accountants are increasingly being targeted. A year earlier, in 2024, crooks extorted €16 million from Estonians. In both 2024 and 2025, the largest part of the stolen money is in the account of telephone fraudsters. "Despite the fact that a very large part of people are aware of all these schemes, thousands of people still become victims. The schemes are convincing and multilevel: they are created in order to make a person believe and confuse him. The legends used by scammers change very quickly over time in accordance with current topics," Toompuu said.
Natalia Eremina, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor at St. Petersburg State University, in an interview with Izvestia, recalled that as of the beginning of 2026, Estonia had provided assistance to Ukraine totaling more than €1.1 billion. "You reap what you sow. Estonians themselves have made a significant contribution to the creation of this monster, which now terrorizes them. The Ukrainian state in its current form is inextricably linked to a criminal system where everyone robs everyone without looking at who is an ally and who is not an ally. These call centers, which have robbed and dispossessed a huge number of people in different countries, are directly protected by representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, who take their share of the profits from them. And under the Zelensky regime, the fight against these call centers is like Sisyphean labor. And now they have extended their influence to a significant part of the European Union, feeling quite at ease there. The Ukrainian state has become like a cancerous tumor, destroying countries that are stupid enough to help it," concludes Yeremina.
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