In Kharkiv, cyber police eliminated a fraudulent call center: they seized people for a million hryvnias
The attackers posed as bank employees and “policemen” and asked citizens for bank account data. After receiving the information, they withdrew the money.
The fraud scheme was exposed by employees of the Cyber Crime Control Department in the Kharkiv region together with the investigative department of the Kharkiv district police department.
It was found that three local residents involved about 40 operators, for which they developed detailed instructions for fraudulent actions. On hacker forums, they bought databases of bank customers, who were called by call-center employees under the guise of employees of a financial institution. Citizens were informed that suspicious transactions were allegedly made from their bank card or that an application had been received to change the financial number. The operators also assured the victims that information about the alleged fraudulent activities would be passed on to the local police.
After that, another employee of the call center called already under the guise of a police officer. To convince the victims, the attackers used “sip-telephony” and replaced the numbers with those indicated on official police websites. Pseudopolitesky reported that in order to block fraudulent actions, it is necessary to inform him of the code from the SMS message. As soon as citizens called the code — the attackers stole money from the victim's bank card.
According to preliminary estimates, the total amount of losses is one million hryvnias.
In the office, where the hall center was located, police officers conducted a search. More than 40 computers and the same number of phones were removed. Searches were conducted with the involvement of employees of the special purpose police regiment of the Kharkiv region police.
The defendants were notified of suspicion under Part 3 of Art. 190 (Fraud) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Suspects can face up to eight years in prison. The issue of choosing a preventive measure in the form of detention is resolved. Investigative actions continue. Procedural management is carried out by the Kharkiv District Prosecutor's Office.
Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine
