Police officers in St. Petersburg stopped technical support for the international network of IT canom. Attackers abducted the funds of Russians with the help of social engineering. This was reported on Thursday official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Irina Volk .
“Employees of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region detained three alleged participants in the international fraud scheme. Activities for the organization of technical support of mass embezzlement of money from citizens of the Russian Federation were stopped,” said the wolf.
According to her, the detention was made possible thanks to the interaction of police officers with the security service of one of the mobile operators. Law enforcement agencies received information that special equipment for redirecting traffic was operating in Kolpino. For six months, there was a connection of more than 12 thousand SIM cards, through the balance accounts of which over 150 million rubles were carried out.
“All this money was stolen by telephone scammers using social engineering methods,” said the representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
As reported, the attackers called abroad called the victims and reported an attempt to unauthorized transfers from their banking cards. Then the scammers convinced the money to the so -called safe accounts and dictated the phone numbers attached to them. When the funds entered the balance accounts controlled by criminals, they were immediately transferred to electronic wallets, and then converted into cryptocurrency. In order not to attract the attention of the mobile operator, during the day, each SIM card was used no more than two times, and then replaced with a new one.
The wolf added that the detainees can be involved in at least 13 episodes of fraud. Criminal cases have been instituted for each of them, they were connected in one proceeding.
During searches for the places of residence of the defendants in Kolpino and the Moscow region, special equipment was found and seized for simultaneously connecting several dozen mobile numbers, Internet centers, routers, modems, laptops, communications and more than 1.5 thousand SIM cards.