Foreigners were searched for 7.5 million US dollars - the National Police together with the FBI stopped the activities of the international criminal organization
Ukrainian citizens and foreigners organized an international fraud scheme. Through specially created trading platforms and call centers, citizens were lured funds, which were later legalized by launching business projects, buying real estate and cryptocurrencies.
Within the framework of international cooperation, investigators of the Main Investigation Department, employees of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police, the Department of International Legal Cooperation of the Office of the Prosecutor General, together with foreign counterparts of the United States of America, documented and stopped the activities of the criminal organization. Its participants established the functioning of a large-scale international fraudulent “scheme”. According to the information received from foreign colleagues, Ukrainian police officers started their own criminal proceedings under Part 4 of Art. 190 (Fraud) and Part 1 of Art. 255 (Creation of a criminal organization) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Ukrainian police established that foreigners and citizens of Ukraine organized the “scheme” and ensured its activities. Roles were clearly distributed between the leaders and participants of the criminal organization: control over the actions of participants and finances, their distribution among all, search for employees of call centers, legalization of funds. In addition, they carefully masked their criminal activities.
The attackers acted according to the following scheme:
- created relevant sites — trading platforms, which allegedly allowed to make a profit by conducting transactions for the purchase and sale of various assets;
- with the help of the software interface simulated the conduct of operations and the growth of profits hundreds of times;
- employees of the established call centers called investors who applied for profits, represented themselves as agents of trading platforms and offered to make additional funds for the provision of commission services - 15% of the total profit;
- received funds and blocked the accounts of the victims;
- transferred money to the accounts of controlled firms in different countries;
- legalized funds by launching business projects, acquiring real estate and cryptocurrencies.
Call centers operated in Kyiv and Kharkiv, their staff numbered more than 40 people, among whom were foreigners. All of them were carefully selected, the prerequisite for admission “to work” was the knowledge of foreign languages.
So far, it has been established that under such a scheme, attackers only sought US citizens for $7.5 million.
On October 5, operatives and investigators with the support of the special unit of the DSR conducted 23 sanctioned searches in the territory of Kyiv, Kyiv and Kharkiv regions. As a result, law enforcement officers stopped the activities of two fraudulent call centers, seized computer equipment, flash drives, crypto media, documentation, bank cards and cash.
The police, together with foreign colleagues from the FBI, are conducting further joint procedural measures to identify all persons involved in the operation of the operation and the full circle of victims.
Department of Strategic Investigations
National Police of Ukraine
