Scam call centers operate in Ukraine, [1] [2] including major cities such as Kyiv and Dnipro. Under Article 190 of The Criminal Code of Ukraine, the activities of these call centers are considered illegal. [3] According to Sberbank, the "capital" of phone fraud is Dnipro, [4] and up to 95% of calls originate from Ukraine to Russians. [5]
These organized cells specialize in fraudulent schemes aimed at extracting funds from citizens. According to Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the activities of these call centers are illegal. [3] According to (the Russian) Sberbank, the "capital" of phone fraud is Dnipro. [4] Scammers may call individuals, posing as bank and mobile operator security personnel, to obtain card information and SMS codes for the purpose of misappropriating victims' funds. After obtaining data supposedly meant to prevent fraud, scammers siphon money from victims and transfer it to specific accounts. The operations of such groups are not confined to Ukraine and Russia but target countries with a significant Russian-speaking population, such as Kazakhstan, Poland, and the Czech Republic. However, there are also call centers focused on English-speaking countries. [2]
According to the Geneva-based Global Initiative, which monitors such activities, the proceeds from fraudulent call centers often do not contribute to the development of the Ukrainian economy but are transferred to offshore accounts or cryptocurrencies to avoid taxation. [1]
International media and organizations such as The Times of Israel, Dagens Nyheter, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), have exposed information about scam call centers based in Kyiv. One of the companies associated with these call centers is named "Milton Group".[ citation needed ]
According to Sberbank up to 95% of calls originate from Ukraine to Russians. [5]
The Russian government has said that Ukrainian scam call centers have played a significant role in the many unusual fires that have occurred in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In December 2022, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) issued a warning about Ukrainian scam calls, saying that scammers "incline gullible citizens to commit arson attacks on social infrastructure facilities, as well as cars in crowded places". According to the FSB, most of these arsonists were told that they were participating in an operation to catch pro-Ukrainian criminals. BBC believes that the claim is not supported by concrete evidence. [6] [7]
In August 2023, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued official warnings about a new form of phone fraud in which Russians are forced to set fire to military enlistment offices through pressure or deception. The authorities claim that scammers call from the territory of Ukraine and choose elderly Russians as their victims. The Russian government has not yet offered any evidence of their claims. [8] [9] Russian business newspaper Kommersant claims that fraudsters support the Armed Forces of Ukraine and organize "terrorist attacks". [10]
An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears.
Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers.
419eater.com is a scam baiting website which focuses on advance-fee fraud. The name 419 comes from "419 fraud", another name for advance fee fraud, and itself derived from the relevant section of the Nigerian criminal code. The website founder, Michael Berry, goes by the alias Shiver Metimbers. As of 2013, the 419 Eater forum had over 55,000 registered accounts. According to one member, "Every minute the scammer I'm communicating with is spending on me is a minute he is not scamming a real potential victim."
Email fraud is intentional deception for either personal gain or to damage another individual using email as the vehicle. Almost as soon as email became widely used, it began to be used as a means to defraud people, just as telephony and paper mail were used by previous generations.
Insurance fraud is any act committed to defraud an insurance process. It occurs when a claimant attempts to obtain some benefit or advantage they are not entitled to, or when an insurer knowingly denies some benefit that is due. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, the most common schemes include premium diversion, fee churning, asset diversion, and workers compensation fraud. Perpetrators in the schemes can be insurance company employees or claimants. False insurance claims are insurance claims filed with the fraudulent intention towards an insurance provider.
Charity fraud is the act of using deception to obtain money from people who believe they are donating to a charity. Often, individuals or groups will present false information claiming to be a charity or associated with one, and then ask potential donors for contributions to this non-existent charity. Charity fraud encompasses not only fictitious charities but also deceptive business practices. These deceitful acts by businesses may involve accepting donations without using the funds for their intended purposes or soliciting funds under false pretenses of need.
A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf.
Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony to conduct phishing attacks.
Telemarketing fraud is fraudulent selling conducted over the telephone. The term is also used for telephone fraud not involving selling.
A staged crash, or crash for cash is when criminals maneuver unsuspecting motorists into crashes in order to make false insurance claims. The cars generally suffer little damage in relation to the large demand that is then fraudulently submitted.
An IRS impersonation scam is a class of telecommunications fraud and scam which targets American taxpayers by masquerading as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and frozen assets if thousands of dollars are not paid immediately, usually via gift cards or money orders. According to the IRS, over 1,029,601 Americans have received threatening calls, and $29,100,604 has been reported lost to these call scams as of March 2016. The problem has been assigned to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Studies highlight that most victims of these scams are aged 20-29 years old and women are more affected than men. One way to decrease the risks of an individual falling victim to IRS impersonation scams is through awareness programs.
AnyDesk is a remote desktop application distributed by AnyDesk Software GmbH. The proprietary software program provides platform-independent remote access to personal computers and other devices running the host application. It offers remote control, file transfer, and VPN functionality. AnyDesk is often used in technical support scams and other remote access scams.
Utility scams are fraudulent acts where a perpetrator calls or arrives unannounced at a utility customer's house in an attempt to take money or sell unnecessary energy accessories through misrepresentation. Often, the fraud involves telling the victim that he or she owes the utility company money and that their power, gas, or water will be shut off immediately unless payment is made.
A SIM swap scam is a type of account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in two-factor authentication and two-step verification in which the second factor or step is a text message (SMS) or call placed to a mobile telephone.
Kitboga is the Internet alias of an American Twitch streamer and YouTuber whose content primarily focuses on scam baiting against phone fraud. His channel has over 1 million followers on Twitch, and his YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers.
Jim Browning is the Internet alias of a software engineer and YouTuber from Northern Ireland whose content focuses on scam baiting and investigating call centres engaging in fraudulent activities.
COVID-19 scams are scams whose cover story primarily relies on the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been reported in multiple countries, primarily the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
A series of Molotov cocktail arson attacks and shootings took place in Russian military commissariat registration and enlistment offices following the start of the country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Other governmental buildings were also attacked in multiple regions of Russia. Part of the Russian partisan and anti-war movements, the attacks were spurred by several factors, including the invasion of Ukraine, the deployment of Russian conscripts to the front line, the start of spring conscription, and rumors about possible mobilization in the country, which were later found to be true.
A pig butchering scam is a type of long-term scam and investment fraud in which the victim is gradually lured into making increasing contributions, usually in the form of cryptocurrency, to a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. They are commonplace on social apps, where, in October 2023, 12% of Americans using said apps had been victims, up from 5% in 2018. The scammer builds trust with the victim through online communication, subsequently persuading them to invest in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. The "butchering" or "slaughtering" of the victim transpires when their assets or funds are stolen.
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