MOSCOW, February 28 Police detained in Moscow one of the suspects in telephone fraud, who stole more than 162 million rubles from a Muscovite in a month in 2023, the press service reports capital headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.
According to the department, from August to September 2023, unknown persons made several calls to a 31-year-old woman, “posing as employees of various banks, as well as law enforcement agencies.” Under the pretext of saving the money that the attackers were allegedly trying to steal, they convinced the victim to transfer 26 million 400 thousand rubles to a “safe account”. Next, the scammers convinced the woman to sell her apartment on Prechistenka Street, since unknown persons had taken out a loan secured by housing. As reported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “following the instructions of the callers, the misled victim made a transaction for the purchase and sale of an apartment.” She gave the proceeds 129 million rubles to unknown persons, the department added.
“After this, the scammers, in the course of further telephone calls, convinced the citizen to deposit 7 million rubles, allegedly to pay for parking spaces that were in shared ownership, which she did, transferring these funds to the accounts indicated to her. Thus, the total material damage caused victim, amounted to 162 million 400 thousand rubles,” said the press service of the Moscow headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
The release says that police on Initiative Street detained one of the suspects — a 25-year-old citizen temporarily residing in the capital.
A criminal case has been initiated under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud). Police carry out search operations and investigative actions to identify and detain the detainee’s accomplices.