A 21-year-old university student defrauded fellow students of over 184,000 hryvnias

The young man complained about imaginary problems to classmates, teachers, and friends and asked for money in debt and gadgets for temporary use. The offender faces up to three years in prison.

The police wrote about this.

This year in September, one of the offender's classmates contacted Police Department No. 1 of the Odessa District Police Department No. 1. The guy noted that his friend twice asked him for his mobile phone and bank card in order to get money from his mother and a friend, which they were supposed to transfer to him. But, using someone else's smartphone and card, the attacker issued seven microloans in the owner's name for a total of 15,400 hryvnias and embezzled the money. The victim noticed this when he started receiving bank messages with loan reminders.

As part of the criminal proceedings initiated on the fact of fraud, law enforcement officers identified nine more citizens who suffered from the young man's illegal actions.

The police found out that the student told his classmates, a girlfriend, and a teacher at the university where he studied, made up stories about personal problems, asked for money in debt, promising to return it, but not intending to do so.

Those who had money lent them to the young man, and those who were without money at that time, the student persuaded to take microloans for him from banks. In addition, the attacker took laptops from two friends, allegedly for preparing presentations and essays for studies, but instead gave one of them to the landlord as payment for the apartment, and sold the other to a pawnshop.

Senior investigator in the case Yulia Bondarenko reported that over more than 1.5 years, the 21-year-old fourth-year student defrauded ten victims of a total of over 184,000 hryvnias. The guy admits his guilt and has already partially compensated for the damages.

«Having collected a sufficient amount of evidence, we informed the defendant of suspicion under Parts 1 and 2 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. This is about the illegal appropriation of someone else's property by deception, that is, fraud, in particular, committed repeatedly. The offender faces the maximum penalty – three years of imprisonment. The investigative actions are continuing under the procedural guidance of the Malinovka District Prosecutor's Office of the city of Odessa, – added Police Captain Yulia Bondarenko.

Natasha Kumar

By Natasha Kumar

Natasha Kumar has been a reporter on the news desk since 2018. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining The Times Hub, Natasha Kumar worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my natasha@thetimeshub.in 1-800-268-7116