Phone Scammers Exploit Russian-Ukrainian Conflict to Steal Money and Aid War Efforts

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Kyiv. A new, unusual front is forming in the war between Russia and Ukraine Ukrainian phone scammers to the neighboring country to the east – there are said to be hundreds of call centers in the Ukraine whose employees do nothing else every day than call people in Russia with Russian SIM cards in order to get their money using a wide variety of fraudulent methods.

The centers were almost inaccessible to Russian law enforcement agencies. And in Ukraine, people often turn a blind eye – if only because of the annexation of Crimea, which has had no consequences for Russia since 2014. However, something crucial changed with the Russian invasion in February 2022: While the scammers used to mainly enrich themselves, today they often see their actions as a kind “sacred mission” – one that can be pursued even more safely than before the start of the war.

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Because since then there has been a final diplomatic ice age between Ukraine and Russia. Russian authorities can also not formally fraud cases report more what was possible before – and where there was no plaintiff, there was no judge. This has several advantages for the Ukrainian state: On the one hand, the procedure weakens the Russian economy. On the other hand, the operators of the centers, mostly entrepreneurs with a questionable background, are still interested in their own profit. A significant part of the proceeds will nevertheless go to the Ukrainian army donated – often 20 to 25 percent.

Employees donate 10 to 15 percent of their monthly salary

An employee in one of these centers confirms this when asked by this editorial team. “In addition, we all donate 10 to 15 percent of our salary every month,” he says. “It’s good manners and that’s what was agreed upon.” What sounds like a somewhat different Robin Hood story isn’t a completely new phenomenon. The Belarusian-Polish broadcaster Belsat reported on the scams in March – and interviewed an employee at a center in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

“Especially at the beginning of the war, our managers motivated us by saying that we were a kind of second front,” Pavlo explained to the broadcaster. “According to the motto: Our boys kill the enemy in the war – and we take the Russians’ money to weaken Russia’s economy.” There are particularly many facilities of this kind in Dnipro. I don’t feel like I’m part of a front, but a lot of people have actually been taken in by it.”

There are countless ways exactly how call centers communicate this money of the Russians come. The most common scam is the usual bank fraud. The Ukrainian operators pose as employees of one of Russia’s largest banks to report suspicious activity on their credit card to the recipient of the call. In the course of the call, they then bring up important information such as the expiry date and the CVV code. With the card number, payments can be initiated on the Internet.

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Sometimes the scammers also pose as police officers answering the call to a non-existent employee of the Russian Central Bank forward onto. This then asks the “customer” to transfer his money to an allegedly secure account for the time being – in the end the victim loses all the money. Most of the loot arrives in Ukraine via intermediate accounts in countries such as Armenia or Kazakhstan because direct bank transfers between Russia and Ukraine no longer work.

“It’s all just a matter of patience. Five people recognize the scam, the sixth or seventh let themselves be scammed,” reports an employee from Kiev, who says he had surprising conversations with the Russians. “There were a few people who noticed the scam right away – but specifically said they wished Ukraine well. That makes me smile.”

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An advanced variant of the scam are Fake offers, according to which the Russians should invest in shares of the large Russian companies Gazprom or Sberbank. “A Russian truck driver once trusted me so much that he sold two of his trucks and invested the money in these ‘stocks,'” Pavlo said. It was about the equivalent of 80,000 euros – and because the call centers often have hundreds of employees, large sums are collected, some of which then go to the Ukrainian army.

Internally displaced persons from Ukraine are also among the victims of fraud

But the fraud business also has one downside: In Ukraine, which has been weakened economically by the war, working in such call centers is currently one of the few opportunities to get a good salary of around 2000 euros a month relatively easily. And so not only are more and more such centers emerging, but also cases in which Ukrainians are also being cheated alongside Russians. Between January and May 2023, the number of crimes of this type quadrupled.

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In the meantime, he is busy Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, an internal commission of inquiry explicitly dealing with issues of telephone fraud. What is particularly bitter is that the fraud is often aimed at internally displaced persons who receive state aid. This aid is not high. But because the recipients include many elderly people with little banking and internet savvy, they are of particular interest to some scammers – and easy prey.

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