A "social benefit" paid for a deceased relative cost a woman in Omutninsk nearly 7 million rubles.

      An unknown caller phoned a 50-year-old woman and informed her about an alleged social payment due to her for a deceased relative. To "confirm her identity," the victim recited her passport details.

      After that, new participants in the "telephone performance" joined in. The next interlocutor introduced herself as an employee of the "Gosuslugi" portal and claimed that the woman's account had been hacked and that her money was being transferred to terrorists. Then a "FSB officer" joined the conversation, who via video call showed a service ID and said that, to save the funds, it was necessary to urgently change the personal account.

      The victim then received further instructions from a "Central Bank employee." She convinced the woman to withdraw all her money and transfer it to a "protected special account." Despite initially refusing, after several days of psychological pressure and threats of criminal liability for "financing Ukraine," the resident of Omutninsk agreed to comply with the fraudsters' demands.

      As a result, the woman withdrew 6 million rubles in cash and handed it over to a "Central Bank cash collector" at a personal meeting in Omutninsk. A week later she went to Kirov and transferred another 960,000 rubles to the account details she had been given. After that, all the "specialists" stopped contacting her and the messenger conversations were deleted.

      Realizing she had been defrauded, the victim reported the matter to the police. A criminal case has been opened under part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — fraud on a particularly large scale. Law enforcement officers remind the public: employees of government agencies and banks do not require people to transfer money, hand over cash, or disclose codes over the phone.