Orenburg fraudster scams Arkhangelsk residents via phone calls

Police in Arkhangelsk Oblast have uncovered a series of thefts from bank accounts. A woman from Orenburg Oblast was deceiving northerners and stealing money from them.

In November 2025, a pensioner from Plesetsk contacted the police after more than 65,000 rubles (about $720 at current rates) disappeared from his account. He reported that the day before, an unknown woman had called him, introduced herself as a social service employee, and said he was eligible for a social payment. To receive the money, she asked him to tell her the code from an SMS message.

“Misled, he dictated the numbers,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Arkhangelsk Region reported. “The calls were repeated several times — the woman reported an error and again asked for the code. When the applicant had doubts, he decided to check his bank account balance and found that more than 65,000 rubles (about $720 at current rates) had been withdrawn via several transactions. A criminal case was opened on the fact of the theft from the bank account.”

The police department«s officers identified the owner of the phone number from which the calls were made. It turned out to be a resident of Orenburg Oblast, and it was later revealed that his 18-year-old wife had been using the SIM card. She confessed to committing the crime during interrogation.

“The suspect explained that she dialed phone numbers at random and, under the pretext of processing social payments, received codes from the victims, which she used to log into their personal accounts in banks« online applications and confirm transfers. It has already been established that the perpetrator stole money from a 32-year-old resident of Arkhangelsk in a similar way. Another criminal case was opened in Orenburg Oblast for one more crime.”

Theft from a bank account is punishable by up to six years of imprisonment. The investigation is ongoing.

Earlier, a resident of Kotlas gave a stranger 10 million rubles (about $111,100 at current rates) in cash.

Another high-profile case happened in the summer. Townspeople helped a 73-year-old pensioner who had been deceived by phone scammers. The woman wanted to transfer her savings to unknown persons, but right on Chumbarova-Luchinskogo Avenue, passersby heard her and talked her out of it.