Scammers forced a Minsk resident to sell his car: details of the scam
A resident of Minsk fell victim to a large-scale and elaborate scam, losing all his money and his car.
Illustrative photo
Scammers, posing as bank and investigation employees, manipulated the man for several days, forcing him to transfer money through a malicious application. The total amount of damage exceeded 134 thousand rubles, writes Onliner.by.
It all started with a phone call. The man received a call from someone posing as a bank employee, who informed him about a credit card issued in his name.
When the Minsk resident objected, he was told that his personal data might have been stolen. Immediately after this call, the victim was "switched" to another fake employee, this time from a different bank.
The new "specialist" informed him that not only had loans been taken out in the man's name, but a fraud report had also been filed against him.
According to the perpetrator, a search was to take place in the victim's apartment, with the confiscation of all undeclared money, for verification purposes.
Under stress, the man complied with the demands: he exchanged his money at an exchange office, topped up his bank card, and, at the scammers' direction, installed a special application on his phone.
After registering in it and linking the card to the phone, money began to be debited from his account.
The "bank employee" asked him not to tell anyone what had happened, to delete the application, and to wait for further instructions.
The next day, the scammers re-established contact. They forced the victim to download the application again, re-link his card to the phone, and provide his car details. The man complied and lost another portion of his money. But this seemed insufficient to the scammers.
Some time later, a "representative of the Investigative Committee" called the Minsk resident. The fake investigator stated that there was insufficient evidence of the man's innocence and that he might be an accomplice to a crime.
To clear himself of suspicion, the victim was ordered to sell his car and "declare" the proceeds, meaning to transfer them through the same application. The scammers maintained the facade until the very end.
They claimed that the man was being monitored by the KGB, and that "suspicious individuals" were watching him on the street. They refused requests for a personal meeting, stating that "all efforts are directed towards apprehending the criminals".
Only after losing all the money from the sale of his car did the resident of Minsk realize that he had fallen victim to a multi-stage deception, and he contacted law enforcement agencies.
The total amount of damage exceeded 134 thousand rubles.
The Central District Department of the Investigative Committee of Minsk has initiated a criminal case under Part 4 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (theft of property by modifying computer information, committed by an organized group on a particularly large scale). The investigation is currently underway.
Comments
Чтобы снять с себя подозрения, он должен продать свою почку, а вырученные средства «задекларировать», то есть перевести через то же приложение.