Man
Professional
- Messages
- 3,061
- Reaction score
- 585
- Points
- 113
In some cases, banks will be obliged to return money stolen by telephone scammers to citizens. Why do people trust scammers and what does this make you think about? RAPSI analyzed the problem of the human factor in crimes related to telephone fraud.
Banks will be required to reimburse citizens for stolen funds if they were transferred without the client’s voluntary consent – such a law was adopted by the State Duma last week.
In addition, the new regulation introduces a number of additional requirements for checking transfers, which will make sure that the payment is secure: credit institutions will have to be more responsible with transactions. Otherwise, banks will be obliged to reimburse the client for the transfer amount made without his voluntary consent. The initiative was approved by the State Duma in the second and third readings at once.
Almost everyone receives calls, but every tenth loses money
Russians lost more than 14 billion rubles last year as a result of the actions of telephone scammers: those same multifaceted people who called each of us - in the guise of a bank employee, a police captain, an intensive care doctor and other "officials" warning us of danger in an alarming voice. Right now, according to their assurances, criminals are withdrawing money from your account, the secret services are catching a dangerous criminal, a policeman is putting your grandson in jail. Underline as necessary, as they say.
According to a VTsIOM survey conducted in August last year, the majority of Russians have encountered telephone fraud - 83%, with every tenth person suffering financial losses.
The data from this survey on how Russians recognize telephone scammers is interesting. Every second Russian — 51% — was able to independently identify the scammer in a conversation. The most vigilant were 35–44-year-olds (57%); those with higher education (59%); residents of both capitals (67% vs. 38% in the rural group); active Internet users (58%) and those living in the Northwestern Federal District (69%).
A third of Russians, although they have not identified a fraudster, are convinced that they could easily do so — 32% (among 18-24 year olds — 50%). 12% admit that they would not be able to recognize a fraudster in a telephone conversation, among older Russians, every fifth one (19%) thinks so. Those with incomplete secondary and secondary education (27-21%), rural residents (22%), active TV viewers (22%) and those living in the North Caucasus District (31%) are also at risk.
Even an educated person can get caught on the hook
These are the figures for last year. Probably, the general outlines of the portrait of a victim of fraudsters have remained unchanged. However, this does not exclude the casuistry of life: teachers, doctors and even not at all secondary employees of state institutions fall for the swindlers' hook.
Thus, in March of this year, the chief specialist of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs transferred 1.5 million rubles to fraudsters, despite the fact that bank employees tried to dissuade the woman from this step. The woman believed the fraudsters' legend so much that she was participating in a special services operation to catch fraudsters that she even took out a loan: the victim, sadly, sent the fraudsters borrowed funds.
A very recent example: a Moscow pediatrician was defrauded of 3 million rubles by scammers. The fraud scheme used here is also quite popular recently: the person was scared with false accusations of sponsoring the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The woman, who was born in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (perhaps this is the fact that the manipulators were pressing on), took them on faith and allowed the scammers to finally intimidate her.
As a result, the citizen took out a loan of 3 million rubles and transferred all the funds to the scammers. An interesting feature, noted by the Telegram channel "Beware, News": throughout the entire fraudulent operation, the woman was forbidden to communicate with relatives and colleagues under various pretexts - they say that she is being wiretapped, it is dangerous, etc., etc.
Obviously, this kind of psychological distancing from loved ones is a mandatory element of the attack on the victim: the person seems to be under a dome of imposed fear and apprehension, against the background of which the logically dubious legends of telephone scammers suddenly appear in real colors.
Expert of the Association of Lawyers of Russia Assia Mukhamedshina confirms that even an educated and intelligent person may find it difficult to recognize a fraudster. But it is extremely important to do so: according to the expert's practice, it is extremely difficult to return stolen money.
"Fraudsters call from spoofed numbers using IP telephony technologies: the number may coincide with the official number of a bank or government agency. This misleads the victim. The criminal either has some psychological knowledge himself, or acts according to clear instructions drawn up by hired "specialists". In these conditions, even a very educated person has a hard time distinguishing an intruder from a real bank employee or, for example, a government official. Fraudsters gain trust and, unfortunately, often achieve money from the other end of the line. It is difficult to return funds to victims of such fraud: SIM cards are disposable, and the bank cards to which the money is transferred are issued to fictitious persons. In practice, however, there have been cases of successful investigation of such cases: law enforcement agencies found the criminal, but the damages were collected for a long time and in the end they were not collected in full. Even such a case, unfortunately, is rare: most often, scammers remain unpunished," says Mukhamedshina.
An important feature that the expert emphasized: fraudsters can actually use modern digital technologies to replace the identified number. The victim's phone displays the official number of the bank or city hall, but in fact, on the other side of the line are criminals.
How to repel an affective attack by scammers and why they are believed
Why do people fall for the tricks of scammers? There are no "secret" methods of psychological manipulation using hypnosis or other alternative methods of influence, or at least they are not used in most such cases - experts interviewed by RAPSI are sure.
"Judging by the cases, the description of which can be found in various information sources, the schemes used are very similar, there is no particular variety or creativity. It is important to understand that the scammers call everyone absolutely randomly, while the overwhelming majority of those who are called by the scammers do not fall for their tricks," notes Irina Makarova, Director of the Center for Psychological Counseling at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
However, there are people who can potentially become victims of fraudulent schemes. What distinguishes such people?
"Almost all manipulative influence techniques are based on the fact that at the first stage of their implementation, it is necessary to cause a strong emotional arousal in the victim, which has the power of affective capture, which significantly narrows and limits the ability to think and rationally evaluate what is happening. Thus, people who can experience such emotional arousal very quickly fall into the scammers' net. For what reasons can a person be so emotionally responsive? Here, several factors can be distinguished, first of all, personal characteristics: emotionality, sensitivity, anxiety, lack of independence, high need for another person, dependence, etc. People with such a personality type are, in principle, at risk, often fall under the influence of other people and not only scammers. At the same time, outwardly they can really create the impression of confident and well-adapted persons," Makarova explains.
The second factor, according to the director of the Center for Psychological Counseling at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, is connected with the special life circumstances that the potential victim experiences.
"That is, emotionally this person is quite stable and resilient, but under the influence of, for example, an acute stressful situation, an actual experience of grief, this person may feel unbalanced, destabilized. Fraudsters can catch a person in such a period and take advantage of it," the expert believes.
The third factor, according to Makarova, is age: “the older we become, the more vulnerable we feel, especially at the age when a person becomes limited in his independence.”
As the expert confirms, the scammers really try to keep the victim under constant control. Apparently, that is why they urge not to hang up and not to lose contact, that is why they scare with the dangers of contacts and advice from loved ones.
"Indeed, if the victim has already fallen for the scammers' hook, they keep them under constant control, not letting them out of their field of influence, not allowing them to weaken contact or leave it. A person cannot remain in an affective state for long, its influence will end and the ability to think rationally, reflect and understand what is happening will begin to recover. Therefore, scammers not only do not let the victim go, but also use various methods to maintain emotional tension, intimidate, build up a sense of threat and imminent tragedy," notes Irina Makarova.
According to the expert, the easiest way to avoid becoming a victim of fraudsters is to break off contact. Do not try to listen, catch signs or analyze the peculiarities of the callers' speech.
"It's worth saying: "I'll call you back right now." If the scammers call on behalf of a bank or government services, you don't even need to ask for the contact details; these numbers can always be found on official websites or on the back of a plastic bank card. Representatives of these organizations never call from mobile phone numbers or messengers. After you've disconnected the call, call someone close to you and tell them the content of the conversation. This is necessary in order to emotionally stabilize, to cope with the affective attack that scammers use to capture the victim. And now you're ready to analyze, think, and make an informed decision about whether you need to do something or not," urges the director of the HSE Center for Psychological Counseling.
As you can see, the peculiarities of our psyche, the internal emotional landscape can work against us: anxieties, fears, heightened sensitivity. The horrors painted by scammers serve as a catalyst – a lever that opens the door and releases the emotional flow that we have been holding back for years. The conclusion is to be in harmony with yourself, not to worry and not to be afraid. Then the “fairy tales” of scammers will remain just modern telephone folklore.
Innocent Guilty: Banks as the Third Party in the Triangle
Society and the government cannot be accused of hushing up the topic of telephone fraud: the problem is widely discussed in the media, including on television, and banking services warn about telephone fraud scenarios.
With banks, however, the story is somewhat ambiguous: credit institutions consistently urge their clients to be financially cautious, send warnings in notifications, but when a confused person comes to a bank branch and asks for a consumer loan for unclear purposes - for some reason such a citizen immediately receives a loan. Although the bank has the right to refuse or, at least, suspend the issuance of money for several days. Obviously, the adopted changes to the legislation will force credit institutions to approach this issue more responsibly.
However, banks have already ceased to be some sacred third party in the topic of telephone fraud, with whom bribes are always smooth. There is a practice when courts side with citizens in matters of payments on those same unfortunate loans taken by people on the instructions of fraudsters. In this way, justice is reminded of the need for responsible financial behavior not only on the part of consumers, but also on the part of bankers.
Confirmation of this is the landmark decision of the Zhirnovsky District Court of the Volgograd Region, issued in June of this year.
The court considered a claim by a bank demanding that a client repay a loan of more than 1 million rubles issued as a result of fraudulent actions. The court rejected Home Credit and Finance Bank LLC's claims against Vitaly Chaika, a resident of the Zhirnovsky District, who became a victim of fraudsters in November 2021.
On November 15, 2021, an unknown person called Vitaly Chaika on his cell phone. He introduced himself as an employee of Home Credit Bank and stated that an application for an online loan had been filed in the man's name. Chaika replied that he had not applied for any loans. After that, they called him back again and asked him to follow the instructions to cancel the application. In particular, the man was asked to provide the SMS codes that had been sent to his phone, which he did. As it turned out later, the man had been issued a loan in the amount of 998,058 rubles by telephone scammers.
After the incident, the man contacted the police, where a criminal case was opened against unidentified persons. The court indicated that the loan agreement with the man was concluded through an information service, without Chaika's participation and actual agreement with him on individual terms of lending and personal insurance.
Moreover, after the loan was issued, the money was immediately transferred to a virtual account in another bank. And all actions to conclude the agreement and transfer money to another bank were performed in one action - by entering a four-digit digital code sent to the man. The court also noted that the purpose of this code was indicated in the SMS in Latin script, in violation of the law on consumer protection, concerning the need to provide information in Russian.
The decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation was also referred to, which indicated that banks in the case of remote execution of a loan agreement must take increased precautions when a newly issued loan is transferred to a third party. Thus, the court refused to satisfy the bank's claims to recover more than 1 million rubles from a resident of the Zhirnovsky District.
Judicial practice
Over the past years, a significant amount of judicial practice has been collected on criminal cases related to telephone fraud of citizens. Its analysis allows us to assume that when administering justice in such cases, the servants of Themis apply an approach of moderate severity of punishment - if the damage to the citizen is insignificant, the defendant compensates for it and repents of committing the crime, then the punishment is very rarely a real term of imprisonment.
At the same time, members of criminal organizations that operate on a large scale and cynically, defrauding Russians of millions of rubles – often taken out on credit under pressure from fraudsters – are given truly severe punishments, fully proportionate to their actions.
Thus, in December 2022, a resident of Saratov entered into a criminal conspiracy with an unidentified person. Then she called two elderly residents of the regional center and told them about an alleged accident in which their relatives were involved. The girl told the pensioners that for money she could protect her relatives from criminal liability. After that, the defendant came to the home of these citizens and took the money, part of which she subsequently transferred to unidentified persons.
The amount of damage caused was over 660 thousand rubles. The girl was found guilty of fraud (part 2, 3 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The court sentenced her to 1 year and 2 months of forced labor with a 10% deduction from her salary for the benefit of the state.
The Fokinsky District Court of Bryansk considered the criminal case of a 20-year-old resident of Odintsovo, Moscow Region, who came to Bryansk as a courier to collect money from three women who had been deceived by telephone scammers.
The scenario is the same: the scammers pretended to be police officers and demanded payment so that their relatives would avoid criminal liability. The convicted resident of Odintsovo came to the addresses indicated by his accomplices and took money from the victims. He was supposed to transfer most of it to the bank account of his accomplices, and take 10 percent for himself. As a result, the courier of the scammers fraudulently received 451,000 rubles from three deceived residents of Bryansk.
The young man fully admitted his guilt, repented of his actions and voluntarily compensated the damage caused to the victims. Taking this into account, the court sentenced him to 1 year and 6 months of suspended imprisonment.
In the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), a sentence was passed on a 35-year-old resident of Vladivostok.
The investigation found that since September 2020, a repeatedly convicted resident of Primorsky Krai and his accomplice had been calling residents of Yakutia who were clients of one of the largest mobile operators.
The fraudsters pretended to be employees of the financial department of a mobile operator and reported that a paid and expensive service had been connected to the subscribers' numbers without their knowledge. Allegedly, in order to return the money for this subscription, it was necessary to give the fraudsters the details of bank cards. The fraudsters were convincing and they were believed. But the fraudsters, having gained access to the personal accounts of citizens in mobile banking applications, stole money from people's accounts.
The investigation found 50 victims in the republic who were defrauded of a total of 2.8 million rubles. In January of this year, the court handed down a strict sentence to one fraudster - 8 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony. In addition, he is required to fully compensate the material damage to citizens.
Source
Banks will be required to reimburse citizens for stolen funds if they were transferred without the client’s voluntary consent – such a law was adopted by the State Duma last week.
In addition, the new regulation introduces a number of additional requirements for checking transfers, which will make sure that the payment is secure: credit institutions will have to be more responsible with transactions. Otherwise, banks will be obliged to reimburse the client for the transfer amount made without his voluntary consent. The initiative was approved by the State Duma in the second and third readings at once.
Almost everyone receives calls, but every tenth loses money
Russians lost more than 14 billion rubles last year as a result of the actions of telephone scammers: those same multifaceted people who called each of us - in the guise of a bank employee, a police captain, an intensive care doctor and other "officials" warning us of danger in an alarming voice. Right now, according to their assurances, criminals are withdrawing money from your account, the secret services are catching a dangerous criminal, a policeman is putting your grandson in jail. Underline as necessary, as they say.
According to a VTsIOM survey conducted in August last year, the majority of Russians have encountered telephone fraud - 83%, with every tenth person suffering financial losses.
The data from this survey on how Russians recognize telephone scammers is interesting. Every second Russian — 51% — was able to independently identify the scammer in a conversation. The most vigilant were 35–44-year-olds (57%); those with higher education (59%); residents of both capitals (67% vs. 38% in the rural group); active Internet users (58%) and those living in the Northwestern Federal District (69%).
A third of Russians, although they have not identified a fraudster, are convinced that they could easily do so — 32% (among 18-24 year olds — 50%). 12% admit that they would not be able to recognize a fraudster in a telephone conversation, among older Russians, every fifth one (19%) thinks so. Those with incomplete secondary and secondary education (27-21%), rural residents (22%), active TV viewers (22%) and those living in the North Caucasus District (31%) are also at risk.
Even an educated person can get caught on the hook
These are the figures for last year. Probably, the general outlines of the portrait of a victim of fraudsters have remained unchanged. However, this does not exclude the casuistry of life: teachers, doctors and even not at all secondary employees of state institutions fall for the swindlers' hook.
Thus, in March of this year, the chief specialist of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs transferred 1.5 million rubles to fraudsters, despite the fact that bank employees tried to dissuade the woman from this step. The woman believed the fraudsters' legend so much that she was participating in a special services operation to catch fraudsters that she even took out a loan: the victim, sadly, sent the fraudsters borrowed funds.
A very recent example: a Moscow pediatrician was defrauded of 3 million rubles by scammers. The fraud scheme used here is also quite popular recently: the person was scared with false accusations of sponsoring the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The woman, who was born in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (perhaps this is the fact that the manipulators were pressing on), took them on faith and allowed the scammers to finally intimidate her.
As a result, the citizen took out a loan of 3 million rubles and transferred all the funds to the scammers. An interesting feature, noted by the Telegram channel "Beware, News": throughout the entire fraudulent operation, the woman was forbidden to communicate with relatives and colleagues under various pretexts - they say that she is being wiretapped, it is dangerous, etc., etc.
Obviously, this kind of psychological distancing from loved ones is a mandatory element of the attack on the victim: the person seems to be under a dome of imposed fear and apprehension, against the background of which the logically dubious legends of telephone scammers suddenly appear in real colors.
Expert of the Association of Lawyers of Russia Assia Mukhamedshina confirms that even an educated and intelligent person may find it difficult to recognize a fraudster. But it is extremely important to do so: according to the expert's practice, it is extremely difficult to return stolen money.
"Fraudsters call from spoofed numbers using IP telephony technologies: the number may coincide with the official number of a bank or government agency. This misleads the victim. The criminal either has some psychological knowledge himself, or acts according to clear instructions drawn up by hired "specialists". In these conditions, even a very educated person has a hard time distinguishing an intruder from a real bank employee or, for example, a government official. Fraudsters gain trust and, unfortunately, often achieve money from the other end of the line. It is difficult to return funds to victims of such fraud: SIM cards are disposable, and the bank cards to which the money is transferred are issued to fictitious persons. In practice, however, there have been cases of successful investigation of such cases: law enforcement agencies found the criminal, but the damages were collected for a long time and in the end they were not collected in full. Even such a case, unfortunately, is rare: most often, scammers remain unpunished," says Mukhamedshina.
An important feature that the expert emphasized: fraudsters can actually use modern digital technologies to replace the identified number. The victim's phone displays the official number of the bank or city hall, but in fact, on the other side of the line are criminals.
How to repel an affective attack by scammers and why they are believed
Why do people fall for the tricks of scammers? There are no "secret" methods of psychological manipulation using hypnosis or other alternative methods of influence, or at least they are not used in most such cases - experts interviewed by RAPSI are sure.
"Judging by the cases, the description of which can be found in various information sources, the schemes used are very similar, there is no particular variety or creativity. It is important to understand that the scammers call everyone absolutely randomly, while the overwhelming majority of those who are called by the scammers do not fall for their tricks," notes Irina Makarova, Director of the Center for Psychological Counseling at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
However, there are people who can potentially become victims of fraudulent schemes. What distinguishes such people?
"Almost all manipulative influence techniques are based on the fact that at the first stage of their implementation, it is necessary to cause a strong emotional arousal in the victim, which has the power of affective capture, which significantly narrows and limits the ability to think and rationally evaluate what is happening. Thus, people who can experience such emotional arousal very quickly fall into the scammers' net. For what reasons can a person be so emotionally responsive? Here, several factors can be distinguished, first of all, personal characteristics: emotionality, sensitivity, anxiety, lack of independence, high need for another person, dependence, etc. People with such a personality type are, in principle, at risk, often fall under the influence of other people and not only scammers. At the same time, outwardly they can really create the impression of confident and well-adapted persons," Makarova explains.
The second factor, according to the director of the Center for Psychological Counseling at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, is connected with the special life circumstances that the potential victim experiences.
"That is, emotionally this person is quite stable and resilient, but under the influence of, for example, an acute stressful situation, an actual experience of grief, this person may feel unbalanced, destabilized. Fraudsters can catch a person in such a period and take advantage of it," the expert believes.
The third factor, according to Makarova, is age: “the older we become, the more vulnerable we feel, especially at the age when a person becomes limited in his independence.”
As the expert confirms, the scammers really try to keep the victim under constant control. Apparently, that is why they urge not to hang up and not to lose contact, that is why they scare with the dangers of contacts and advice from loved ones.
"Indeed, if the victim has already fallen for the scammers' hook, they keep them under constant control, not letting them out of their field of influence, not allowing them to weaken contact or leave it. A person cannot remain in an affective state for long, its influence will end and the ability to think rationally, reflect and understand what is happening will begin to recover. Therefore, scammers not only do not let the victim go, but also use various methods to maintain emotional tension, intimidate, build up a sense of threat and imminent tragedy," notes Irina Makarova.
According to the expert, the easiest way to avoid becoming a victim of fraudsters is to break off contact. Do not try to listen, catch signs or analyze the peculiarities of the callers' speech.
"It's worth saying: "I'll call you back right now." If the scammers call on behalf of a bank or government services, you don't even need to ask for the contact details; these numbers can always be found on official websites or on the back of a plastic bank card. Representatives of these organizations never call from mobile phone numbers or messengers. After you've disconnected the call, call someone close to you and tell them the content of the conversation. This is necessary in order to emotionally stabilize, to cope with the affective attack that scammers use to capture the victim. And now you're ready to analyze, think, and make an informed decision about whether you need to do something or not," urges the director of the HSE Center for Psychological Counseling.
As you can see, the peculiarities of our psyche, the internal emotional landscape can work against us: anxieties, fears, heightened sensitivity. The horrors painted by scammers serve as a catalyst – a lever that opens the door and releases the emotional flow that we have been holding back for years. The conclusion is to be in harmony with yourself, not to worry and not to be afraid. Then the “fairy tales” of scammers will remain just modern telephone folklore.
Innocent Guilty: Banks as the Third Party in the Triangle
Society and the government cannot be accused of hushing up the topic of telephone fraud: the problem is widely discussed in the media, including on television, and banking services warn about telephone fraud scenarios.
With banks, however, the story is somewhat ambiguous: credit institutions consistently urge their clients to be financially cautious, send warnings in notifications, but when a confused person comes to a bank branch and asks for a consumer loan for unclear purposes - for some reason such a citizen immediately receives a loan. Although the bank has the right to refuse or, at least, suspend the issuance of money for several days. Obviously, the adopted changes to the legislation will force credit institutions to approach this issue more responsibly.
However, banks have already ceased to be some sacred third party in the topic of telephone fraud, with whom bribes are always smooth. There is a practice when courts side with citizens in matters of payments on those same unfortunate loans taken by people on the instructions of fraudsters. In this way, justice is reminded of the need for responsible financial behavior not only on the part of consumers, but also on the part of bankers.
Confirmation of this is the landmark decision of the Zhirnovsky District Court of the Volgograd Region, issued in June of this year.
The court considered a claim by a bank demanding that a client repay a loan of more than 1 million rubles issued as a result of fraudulent actions. The court rejected Home Credit and Finance Bank LLC's claims against Vitaly Chaika, a resident of the Zhirnovsky District, who became a victim of fraudsters in November 2021.
On November 15, 2021, an unknown person called Vitaly Chaika on his cell phone. He introduced himself as an employee of Home Credit Bank and stated that an application for an online loan had been filed in the man's name. Chaika replied that he had not applied for any loans. After that, they called him back again and asked him to follow the instructions to cancel the application. In particular, the man was asked to provide the SMS codes that had been sent to his phone, which he did. As it turned out later, the man had been issued a loan in the amount of 998,058 rubles by telephone scammers.
After the incident, the man contacted the police, where a criminal case was opened against unidentified persons. The court indicated that the loan agreement with the man was concluded through an information service, without Chaika's participation and actual agreement with him on individual terms of lending and personal insurance.
Moreover, after the loan was issued, the money was immediately transferred to a virtual account in another bank. And all actions to conclude the agreement and transfer money to another bank were performed in one action - by entering a four-digit digital code sent to the man. The court also noted that the purpose of this code was indicated in the SMS in Latin script, in violation of the law on consumer protection, concerning the need to provide information in Russian.
The decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation was also referred to, which indicated that banks in the case of remote execution of a loan agreement must take increased precautions when a newly issued loan is transferred to a third party. Thus, the court refused to satisfy the bank's claims to recover more than 1 million rubles from a resident of the Zhirnovsky District.
Judicial practice
Over the past years, a significant amount of judicial practice has been collected on criminal cases related to telephone fraud of citizens. Its analysis allows us to assume that when administering justice in such cases, the servants of Themis apply an approach of moderate severity of punishment - if the damage to the citizen is insignificant, the defendant compensates for it and repents of committing the crime, then the punishment is very rarely a real term of imprisonment.
At the same time, members of criminal organizations that operate on a large scale and cynically, defrauding Russians of millions of rubles – often taken out on credit under pressure from fraudsters – are given truly severe punishments, fully proportionate to their actions.
Thus, in December 2022, a resident of Saratov entered into a criminal conspiracy with an unidentified person. Then she called two elderly residents of the regional center and told them about an alleged accident in which their relatives were involved. The girl told the pensioners that for money she could protect her relatives from criminal liability. After that, the defendant came to the home of these citizens and took the money, part of which she subsequently transferred to unidentified persons.
The amount of damage caused was over 660 thousand rubles. The girl was found guilty of fraud (part 2, 3 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The court sentenced her to 1 year and 2 months of forced labor with a 10% deduction from her salary for the benefit of the state.
The Fokinsky District Court of Bryansk considered the criminal case of a 20-year-old resident of Odintsovo, Moscow Region, who came to Bryansk as a courier to collect money from three women who had been deceived by telephone scammers.
The scenario is the same: the scammers pretended to be police officers and demanded payment so that their relatives would avoid criminal liability. The convicted resident of Odintsovo came to the addresses indicated by his accomplices and took money from the victims. He was supposed to transfer most of it to the bank account of his accomplices, and take 10 percent for himself. As a result, the courier of the scammers fraudulently received 451,000 rubles from three deceived residents of Bryansk.
The young man fully admitted his guilt, repented of his actions and voluntarily compensated the damage caused to the victims. Taking this into account, the court sentenced him to 1 year and 6 months of suspended imprisonment.
In the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), a sentence was passed on a 35-year-old resident of Vladivostok.
The investigation found that since September 2020, a repeatedly convicted resident of Primorsky Krai and his accomplice had been calling residents of Yakutia who were clients of one of the largest mobile operators.
The fraudsters pretended to be employees of the financial department of a mobile operator and reported that a paid and expensive service had been connected to the subscribers' numbers without their knowledge. Allegedly, in order to return the money for this subscription, it was necessary to give the fraudsters the details of bank cards. The fraudsters were convincing and they were believed. But the fraudsters, having gained access to the personal accounts of citizens in mobile banking applications, stole money from people's accounts.
The investigation found 50 victims in the republic who were defrauded of a total of 2.8 million rubles. In January of this year, the court handed down a strict sentence to one fraudster - 8 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony. In addition, he is required to fully compensate the material damage to citizens.
Source
