Five Russians detained for helping phone scammers from Ukraine

Police officers detained five residents of the Moscow region suspected of aiding telephone scammers from Ukraine. This was reported to Lente.ru by the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Irina Volk.

According to her, operatives of the department for organizing the fight against the illegal use of information and communication technologies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs established that the Russians ensured the operation of special equipment for substituting telephone numbers. They acted on instructions from Ukrainian employers.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the suspects purchased GSM gateways and activated the SIM cards of mobile operators, thanks to which the attackers changed the phone number of a swindler who called from abroad to a Russian one, providing him with anonymity. Fraudsters posed as employees of banks or law enforcement agencies and persuaded citizens to transfer money to them supposedly to a safe account.

Searches were carried out in four apartments in Moscow, Dmitrov and Krasnogorsk and equipment for the remote use of subscriber numbers, more than ten thousand SIM cards, GSM gateways, modems, and computer equipment were confiscated.

The defendants in the case were charged with fraud.