a young Green girl gave half a million rubles to scammers / Incidents of Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk Territory / Newslab.Ru

A resident of Zelenogorsk became a victim of scammers and gave them a large sum.

As the police said, they received a statement from a 25-year-old local resident. She said that in early April she received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as an employee of a telecom operator. Under the pretext of the expiration of the SIM card, the attacker convinced the girl to continue the conversation, after which he reported an alleged attempt to hack her accounts.

Further, other participants became involved in the scheme: the callers introduced themselves as employees of “technical security”, “Central Bank”, as well as law enforcement agencies. The girl was consistently put into a state of alarm, convinced that her personal data had been compromised and that her bank accounts were being used by scammers to obtain loans and even finance illegal activities.

Particular pressure was exerted by the inclusion of a person in the conversation who introduced himself as an FSB officer. He showed his ID and stated that the girl could allegedly be prosecuted for complicity, giving her a limited time of 48 hours to “settle the situation.” This became the key point of intimidation.

Under constant control of the attackers, including through demonstration of the screen of a mobile device and the requirement to send screenshots of notifications and call logs, the victim followed all instructions. Specific actions were dictated to her: applying for loans from various banks, transferring funds between her accounts and to so-called “safe accounts.”

As a result, the victim obtained several loans and transferred funds to third party accounts, and also fulfilled additional demands of the attackers, including the purchase of electronic SIM cards and the transfer of remaining funds. The total damage caused to the victim amounted to 519,900 rubles. Only after a while, after discussing what happened with her relatives, she realized that she had become a victim of scammers and contacted the police.

A criminal case has been initiated under Part 3 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Fraud committed on a large scale.” The sanction provides for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of up to 6 years. Currently, investigative actions are being carried out aimed at identifying the persons involved in the commission of this crime.

“Under no circumstances should financial transactions be carried out at the direction of unknown persons, no matter who they may appear to be. Real employees of banks, law enforcement agencies and government agencies do not require processing loans, transferring funds or transmitting personal data over the phone,” the police remind.