According to an article published by Russia’s Interfax.ru on September 2, Irina Volker, a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, informed that the Moscow police had arrested five residents of Krasnodar. The criminal suspects were making money under the guise of providing paranormal services, and their behavior was suspected of fraud.
Screenshot of the report
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson Irina Volker told reporters on September 2: “With the assistance of the staff of the Cyber ​​Security Department of Sberbank, the staff of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Northwest Administrative District of Moscow arrested Kela. Five residents of Snodar City, the five suspects are suspected of committing gang crimes and defrauding citizens’ property in the name of providing paranormal services.”
Walker introduced: “The police determined that the suspect involved in the 2017 case created multiple accounts on a social networking platform, falsely claiming that he was a magician and a divination master, providing services such as predicting the future, avoiding disasters, love spells, and making money. All of the gang’s fraudulent activities are carried out remotely by phone or through social networks.”
According to Irina Walker, fake fortune-telling masters charge 1,000 rubles (about 115 yuan) for the first consultation, but then they will lie about the deceived person having serious problems, and only they can help resolve them.
Irina Walker gave an example: “One of the deceived people hoped that his friend would recover. The amount of money defrauded exceeded 4.5 million rubles (about 520,000 yuan), most of which came from loans. It is conceivable that using this Candles, amulets and other items bought with pennies did not help friends recover.”
After learning of the scam, some of the deceived people tried to get their money back, but received only a small amount of compensation, and some were threatened in turn. At present, the police have received reports from 9 citizens, involving an amount of 23 million rubles (about 2.65 million yuan). At the same time, investigators found that the five suspects had accumulated as much as 500 million rubles (about 57.67 million yuan) in their bank accounts!
Based on this fact, according to Article 159, paragraph 4, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, investigators of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs filed criminal proceedings against the five suspects for fraud. All five suspects involved have now been arrested and police are looking for all victims.
