Irkutsk Student Duped, Made Courier by Scammers

A 19-year-old student from Irkutsk became a courier for phone scammers after falling for their tricks. Police detained the young man in the village of Sedovo in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) at the moment of money transfer. The press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) reported this.

According to police, the story began when scammers called the son of one of the local residents and convinced him to provide a code from an SMS supposedly for replacing a paper SNILS (personal insurance number) with a plastic one. After that, the criminals gained access to his account on «Gosuslugi» (state services portal) and began convincing the man that a power of attorney had been issued in his name to transfer money to terrorists.

Then the fraudsters turned to his mother. The woman was intimidated with criminal liability for aiding extremism and demanded that she withdraw all money from her accounts and hand it over to an «FSB freelance employee» for verification. However, at the last moment she suspected deception and contacted the police.

A 19-year-old student from Irkutsk came to the meeting for the money. As police discovered, he himself had previously fallen victim to a similar scheme.

According to the investigation, first the young man was deceived under the pretext of repairing an intercom and gained access to his account on «Gosuslugi». After that, fake security officers convinced him to transfer money from a credit card, and then forced him to borrow money from friends, fly to Irkutsk, film his parents’ apartment on video, and pawn family gold jewelry.

The scammers told the student that the jewelry was allegedly part of a criminal case, threatened him with a life sentence for high treason, and offered him a chance to «redeem himself». Under their dictation, the young man recorded a video with an «oath of an FSB freelance employee» and began carrying out orders.

According to the MVD of the DPR, using the 50,000 rubles (about $555 at current rates) he borrowed, he came to the Donetsk People’s Republic, where he collected 1.5 million rubles (about $16,700 at current rates) from another victim in Mariupol and handed the money over to the scammers. The next assignment was to travel to the young man and his mother, who at the last moment suspected something was wrong.

During the money handover in the village of Sedovo, police officers detained the courier. All money was returned to the owners.

Now law enforcement officers are finding out what other episodes the detainee may be involved in, and are also identifying the organizers of the fraudulent scheme.