Translated material
Media: Ukraine has become the “world leader” in telephone fraud
The bilingualism of Ukraine, constant data leaks in Russia and the cessation of cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries have led to the fact that Russians have become the main target of attacks by Ukrainian telephone scammers. Under these conditions, Ukraine has become the “world leader” in telephone fraud, writes The Economist magazine, citing the upcoming Mediazona investigation and sources in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.
Since February 2022, there have been 280 arson attacks on military registration and enlistment offices, administrative buildings, banks and post offices in Russia, according to Mediazona data reviewed by The Economist. If the first arsons were mainly committed by people who wanted to show an anti-war position, then subsequent ones are often set up by pensioners who have become victims of telephone scammers.
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Often, scammers act according to a similar scheme: they intimidate on behalf of the FSB, offer cooperation, convince them to transfer money to them, and then offer to start an arson in order to both return the money and “help the investigation.” Such attacks have become frequent since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russian security officials accuse Ukrainian call centers of fraud. A Ukrainian intelligence source told The Economist that this is a “routine operation” that “Ukrainian intelligence services” are working on. “They have experienced psychologists who can manipulate people,” a source in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies said about the scammers. In his opinion, the main motivation for scammers is money, and “sometimes they can also serve the fatherland.”
Despite the fact that scammers use methods of manipulation and coercion, Russian courts in 99.74 percent of cases sentence victims of scammers in various criminal cases. “In Russia it is impossible to protect people, regardless of whether they are deceived or not,” lawyer Dmitry commented on the situation Grips.
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A source in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies also accused the victims of the scammers of allegedly committing the arson deliberately. “When people are caught, they say anything: they drank something, they were fed something, or they were injected with something. But you can get grandma to throw a Molotov cocktail at a military office or anywhere - if your price is right,” the source told The Economist.
Today the BBC published the story of the wife of a Ukrainian prisoner of war, Svetlana, who was tried to be recruited by Russian intelligence services to set fire to the Ukrainian railway or the military registration and enlistment office. Svetlana contacted the Security Service of Ukraine and continued to pretend to cooperate with a Russian agent so that the intelligence services could obtain more information about him.
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