Chita Taxi Driver Helps Detain Fraud Courier

A taxi driver from Chita helped detain a courier for fraudsters who tricked the mother of a soldier killed in the special military operation into transferring 6.7 million rubles (approximately $67,000 at current rates). This was reported on January 30 by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for Zabaikalsky Krai on its channel in MAX.

The taxi driver received an order for a night trip from Chita to Nerchinsk and back. His passenger was constantly talking on the phone, with his interlocutor dictating the route to him. In Nerchinsk, the young man took a package from a woman and asked to be driven to Chita airport. The taxi driver suspected something was wrong and passed on the description and phone number of the passenger to the police.

The suspect was detained in one of the hotels. It turned out that he is 34 years old and had flown from St. Petersburg. The man confessed that he was helping the fraudsters. Meanwhile, no reports of missing money were filed with the Nerchinsk police. Law enforcement officers found the victim, a 54-year-old woman, themselves.

The woman said that she first received a call allegedly from the military commissariat saying that her deceased son had been awarded a medal for participation in the special military operation. They convinced her that to receive the award, she needed to make an appointment, and for that, to provide the application code.

Then, the woman was called by fake employees of the bank, the Federal Security Service (FSB), Rosreestr (the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography), and other organizations, who frightened her with hacking of her bank account and transfer of money to Ukraine. They told her that to keep the money safe, she needed to withdraw it and hand over the cash to a courier.

A criminal case has been initiated, the detained man was arrested, and the money was returned to its owner. The taxi driver will be rewarded for his vigilance.