Police bust Ukraine fraud ring that took out loans in Latvian citizens' names
Ukrainian and Latvian police have exposed a fraudulent organization whose members, posing as representatives of a law firm offering to recover lost investments, took out loans in foreigners’ names and laundered the money through cryptocurrency, the National Police of Ukraine said on its website on Friday.
"Suspects from Ukraine called Latvian citizens, introduced themselves as employees of a law firm and convinced them they would help recover lost funds. In reality, they gained access to the victims’ online banking, took out loans in their names, and in some cases drove people to sell property or take out secured loans. The stolen funds were laundered through cryptocurrency. In this way the perpetrators defrauded citizens of at least UAH 4 million," the statement said.
The fraudulent call center operated in the Kharkiv region. Its members deliberately targeted people who had already lost money through fake investment platforms, fraudulent brokers or cryptocurrency scams, exploiting their vulnerability to defraud them again. Victims’ contact details were purchased from other fraudulent groups, obtained from associates or found on the dark web. Since the fraudsters did not speak Latvian, they pressured victims to switch to Russian, arguing that they had studied it at school and "understood it anyway."
The scheme was exposed by investigators of the Main Investigative Directorate together with Kharkiv region cybercrime police and Security Service of Ukraine operatives in the Kharkiv region, with the assistance of the National Police’s Department of International Police Cooperation and in coordination with Latvian law enforcement.
As part of the special operation, law enforcement officers conducted 14 searches in Kharkiv and the Kharkiv region. Five members were detained and served with suspicion notices for creating and participating in a criminal organization (Parts 1 and 2, Article 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), unauthorized interference in the operation of information systems (Part 5, Article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and fraud committed on an especially large scale by an organized group (Parts 4 and 5, Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The court remanded two key suspects in custody and placed three others under round-the-clock house arrest.
