Police complete investigation into nearly 1.2 million hryvnia fraudulent scheme

Investigators and cyber police officers have established that a criminal scheme to gain access to citizens' bank accounts was organized by a 17-year-old resident of Berdychiv, involving two peers from Zhytomyr. They defrauded residents of different regions of Ukraine, causing them losses totaling almost 1.2 million hryvnias. At the end of May, law enforcement officers stopped the activities of the criminal group.

The pre-trial investigation established that the accomplices sent out in the applications «Facebook Messenger» and «Viber» offers of financial assistance. The messages contained links to phishing sites that mimicked banking websites. By clicking on them, users entered their logins and passwords to access their financial accounts.

Such data immediately became available to young men, who later authorized themselves and received the opportunity to make contactless payments with other people's cards. The accomplices purchased valuable mobile phones and other goods in Berdychiv and Zhytomyr, and sometimes received cash through supermarket cash registers. They sold the purchased gadgets.

The 17-year-old organizer distributed the «profits» among the group members. In addition, the young men purchased a car, registering it in the name of the mother of one of them.

The fraudulent scheme was exposed by the cyber police of the Zhytomyr region together with specialists from the SBU and with the assistance of the security service of the JSC CB «PrivatBank». During the authorized searches, investigators seized mobile phones, bank cards, computer equipment, cash and other evidence of criminal activity.

Currently, three minors have been charged with taking someone else's property by deception (fraud), committed repeatedly, under martial law, by carrying out illegal operations using electronic computing equipment, committed by an organized group (Parts 4, 5 of Article 190, Part 3 of Article 28, Parts 1, 2 of Article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). In addition, the property of the defendants worth about 800 thousand hryvnias was seized.

The other day, the pre-trial investigation under the procedural guidance of the Zhytomyr Regional Prosecutor's Office was completed, and the materials were sent to the court.

According to current legislation, for such illegal actions, the accused face imprisonment for a term of 5 to 12 years with confiscation of property.