The Ukrainian authorities announced the arrest of nine members of a criminal organization, including six Czechs, who called Czech citizens from Ukraine using fake numbers and extorted over three million crowns from them. This was reported by the Ukrainian police, whose statement was brought to the attention of the Novinky.cz server.
The fraud was allegedly organized by a forty-year-old Ukrainian, for whom two Ukrainian citizens and six Czechs, who were wanted internationally for fraud, worked from Odesa, Ukraine.
Together, the members of the criminal group succeeded in defrauding at least 16 Czechs. They called Czech citizens from fake numbers and pretended to be officials. They manipulated their victims into giving them remote access to their phones or computers, or obtained their credit card details and tricked them into transferring money. Some of the scammers were even persuaded to withdraw the cash and hand it over to a fake courier who was supposed to deliver it to a “safe place”.
The identity of the fraudsters, as well as their whereabouts, were however managed to be revealed by the employees of the cyber police department. A total of 23 house searches led to their capture. The court will now decide on the extradition of six Czech citizens to the Czech Republic, the Ukrainians face up to 12 years in prison.
According to the Ukrainian police, an earlier agreement between the Czech and Ukrainian law enforcement authorities helped to stop the activity of the fraudulent call center in time. A similar form of fraud was also successful last year, with this fraudulent activity, Czech and Ukrainian criminals lured more than 183 million crowns from their victims.
Tags: Ukrainian police detained Czechs supposed participated fraud
