The Role of Russian Intermediaries in Ukrainian Call Center Scams

Scammers have been luring money from Russians. These funds, reportedly, were going to finance the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Five people have been detained

FSB detained organizers of a communication hub in Russia, facilitating the operation of Ukrainian call centers. — A Russian FSB employee during the arrest of the organizers of a communication hub in Russia, which facilitated the operation of Ukrainian call centers engaged in phone scams. Still from video. Maximum possible quality. Photo: TASS/CPC FSB RF

The Federal Security Service uncovered a network of Russian intermediaries aiding Ukrainian call centers in deceiving Russians. In total, the service detained five individuals — they established a special communication hub in Russia.

Through this hub, they coordinated call centers from Ukraine and managed to withdraw over 7 billion rubles from Russians. The money was used to finance the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Additionally, the intermediary company assisting Ukrainian call centers was registered in Turkey.

The FSB released a video of the detained individuals, showing the environment in which they operated. Two of the detainees confessed to performing technical tasks. The video displays tables with lists of shell companies and phone numbers used by scammers to make calls. It also shows a device activating SIM cards. The scammers kept statistics, including knowing the percentage of delivered SMS messages.

Commenting on this, competitive intelligence expert Evgeny Yushchuk says:

— A communication hub like this is a device that allows calling Russian numbers and appearing as a Russian number. Meaning, if you install a region identifier, not just regular numbers, on a mobile phone, you will discover that scammers making these calls, including Ukrainian fraudsters, do it as if from Russian numbers, from various regions. This is not a new method of fraud. At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, bandits working in Russia were arrested, and a huge number of SIM cards and so-called SIM banks were confiscated. SIM banks are devices that automatically switch between different numbers on SIM cards, bypassing tariff restrictions and so on. These spam call factories use Russian SIM cards. These cards are periodically blocked, new ones are brought in, and so on. I assume that when these people were caught and their money flows in Russia were investigated, it revealed further branches in this network because it’s clear that the beneficiary is abroad. But partly, perhaps surprisingly, we are helped by sanctions in the sense that it is impossible to simply send money to foreign accounts, it requires certain tricks. So if a person’s money is stolen, the scammers have to withdraw it to Russian accounts, then transfer it abroad via cryptocurrencies and other means. This Russian part was identified, according to reports, and when law enforcement knows where to go and knock on the door and then put on handcuffs, they certainly do it, and that’s what happened.

— Turkey suddenly appeared in this fraudulent scheme.

— They needed to register in a country where there would be no power outage due to a bomb or missile strike, and where [Russian police] wouldn’t reach them, so they chose Turkey.

The scam scheme, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was in operation since 2022. The detainees used offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Sochi, Moscow, and Leningrad regions. Servers, phones, laptops, money in rubles and foreign currency, high-end cars were seized.

The detainees have been charged with “fraud committed by an organized group on an especially large scale.” The punishment under this article provides for up to ten years of imprisonment.

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FSB detained organizers of a communication hub in Russia, facilitating the operation of Ukrainian call centers.

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