In Smolensk, a group of persons accused of IT fraud will appear before the court. This was reported in August by the press service of the Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Smolensk region. Department No. 1 of the Investigation Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Smolensk sent a criminal case to court on charges of four local residents of committing 14 facts of fraud against residents of various regions of the Russian Federation: Tyumen, Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Kemerovo, Amur regions, Krasnodar Territory, Novorossiysk, Omsk , Nalchik, Irkutsk, Ulyanovsk, Makhachkala, Kirov.
According to the investigation, one of the accused, a 34-year-old from Smolensk, used the list of depositors of the MMM financial pyramid, indicating their names and contacts, as well as prepared texts for calling them in order to deceive and seize their money. He attracted three more acquaintances born in 1989, 1990 and 1999, colluding with them. The accomplices assigned roles. One of the accused called the citizens, introduced himself as an employee of a financial pyramid and informed about the possibility of receiving payments in the amount of 780,000 rubles to 2,500,000 rubles, and specified personal data and a telephone number. Then one of his accomplices called these same citizens, also posing as an employee of the organization. He reported that in order to receive the due amount, it is necessary to pay a commission or tax for the transfer of funds.
Misled citizens believed the attackers and transferred various amounts to the bank cards indicated by them – from 19.6 thousand rubles to 602 thousand rubles. The fourth defendant in his personal car brought his accomplices to ATMs to cash out the stolen funds.
The illegal activities of the group were stopped by the police officers. The necessary evidence was obtained, the group members were charged with 14 counts of fraud. Currently, the criminal case has been sent to the court for consideration on the merits.