The National Police together with Latvian colleagues neutralized the activities of a group that sought foreigners for 6 million UAH
Operatives of the Strategic Investigation Department in Zaporizhzhya Oblast of the National Police, investigators of the Investigative Department of the Regional Police, together with the Department for Combating Cybercrime of the Main Department of the Criminal Police of the State Police of Latvia, with the assistance of Europol and Eurojust, established the organizers of the group of victims on the territory of the European Union as well as a scheme in which attackers cheated money.
Zaporozhye residents organized the activities of call centers. To do this, several premises were specially rented, equipped with the necessary equipment, and personnel were selected. Customer bases were purchased from DarkNet. In order to make it impossible to expose the activities of the criminal group and identify its participants, special software for communication tools was used.
The defendants acted according to the following scheme: they called potential victims and represented themselves as employees of foreign services from financial markets, offered to return lost funds on trading crypto exchanges that belonged to pseudo-brokers. To receive funds, they offered to download a certain electronic wallet and enter a specified amount in cryptocurrency on it as payment for the return of all lost money. After withdrawing the cryptos to other accounts, they invented reasons for withholding payments, and later stopped contacting “clients”.
At present, 19 victims from all over Europe were identified, who were searched for almost UAH 6 million. On March 11, operatives, investigators with the support of special agents of the KORD, detained the organizer and two members of the group in the order of Art.
208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. They also conducted searches in the offices of call centers and places of residence of the persons involved in Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Police seized computer equipment, bank cards, notebooks with algorithms of actions and rough records, ammunition. Three detainees and another member of the group were reported on suspicion under Part 3 and 4 of Article 190 (fraud) of the Criminal Code of
Ukraine. The issue of choosing precautionary measures is being resolved.
National Police of Ukraine
