The police have eliminated the communication hub of Ukrainian fraudsters in the Leningrad region

On February 2, employees of the UBK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, together with the Special Headquarters Regiment, stopped the activities of a group that operated fraudulent call centers operating from the territory of Ukraine.

"During operational activities, two accomplices were detained in rented apartments in the town of Murino and the village of Novoe Devyatkino. They turned out to be a 20-year-old unemployed girl from the Pskov region and a 28—year-old man who previously lived in the Republic of Kalmykia," the agency's Telegram channel says.

According to the investigation, since August 2025, the suspects have been servicing SIM boxes, special complexes for passing telephone traffic that allowed making calls from abroad with location substitution.

They received equipment and SIM cards from their supervisors through courier services, regularly changing their places of residence for conspiracy purposes. Remuneration for the work was paid in cryptocurrency and amounted to about 12 thousand rubles per day for each.

At least 5,000 fraudulent calls passed through the communication center every day. The involvement of the detainees in at least 50 criminal cases initiated in various regions of Russia has been established. During the searches, communication gateways, laptops with specialized software, routers, mobile phones with correspondence, more than 3.5 thousand SIM cards and bank cards were seized.

Criminal cases have been initiated under articles on fraud and illegal use of communications. The suspects have been arrested. Measures are being taken to identify the organizers of the criminal scheme.

Entertaining logic: how scammers speculate on the topic of microloans after the winter holidays

The attackers are taking advantage of the financial difficulties of Russians due to New Year's expenses and long vacations.

On this day, it was reported that scammers began sending messages to house chats about checking the water meter. The attackers use special chatbots that mimic official services. Under the pretext of checking counters, they are trying to steal credentials from accounts on the Gosuslugi portal.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.