450 million rubles were extorted from a Muscovite woman under the pretext of a data leak

The scammers convinced a Moscow resident to transfer 450 million rubles to them, claiming a leak of personal data at her work and the need to protect bank accounts. This was reported on November 7 in the press service of the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

"A message was received from a user with the profile name and photo of her colleague <...> after which [the fraudster] informed about the need to wait for a message from him," the department told TASS.

After chatting with a man posing as a colleague, the woman began receiving messages from other participants in the fraudulent scheme. They presented themselves as employees of the FSB and the Bank of Russia, claiming that confidential information had been leaked in the organization where the victim worked. At the same time, the attackers intimidated the Muscovite woman with criminal responsibility for disclosing the contents of conversations, ensuring that she did not tell anyone about what was happening.

Then the scammers moved on to the financial part of the deception. Under the pretext of preventing the compromise of bank accounts, they convinced the woman of the need to reissue them. To save her savings, she was offered to withdraw money in cash and transfer it to a courier, who was supposed to ensure that funds were credited to new accounts. Following these instructions, the victim lost a total of 450 million rubles.

The capital's Interior Ministry headquarters also described a typical social portrait of victims of such crimes. According to the observations of law enforcement officers, single women over the age of 45 who live in cities are most often the victims. At the same time, the presence of a permanent place of work, as specified in the department, is not a mandatory feature.

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The incident occurred in October last year, when a woman lost 450 million rubles due to cyberbullying, which was a record amount. Over the past few years, fraudulent schemes "have begun to be committed for a million rubles and above." Currently, 80% of cases belong to the categories of "grave" and "especially grave", which start from the amount of 250 thousand rubles.