A 16-year-old hacker who worked for fraudulent call centers was detained in St. Petersburg

[Teacher]

As an ordinary teenager, he became a key link in the chain of scammers.

In St. Petersburg, law enforcement agencies conducted a successful operation to detain a 16-year-old young man suspected of illegally accessing computer information. This young man was discovered thanks to the joint efforts of UBK employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Federal Security Service.

According to information provided by the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region on March 14, the detainee provided technical support to fraudulent call centers. His task was to check the equipment that allows you to manipulate and replace phone numbers. For their services, the teenager received payment in cryptocurrency.

The operation revealed that the young man worked from a rented apartment, which was equipped with four GSM gateways, two thousand SIM cards and a laptop delivered by couriers. To ensure secrecy, the young man regularly changed his place of residence and replaced his SIM cards daily.

During the investigation, it was also established that there were two more accomplices who served as system administrators. One of them received about three thousand SIM cards from Moscow every week, distributing them among the group members.

At the moment, several criminal cases have been initiated on the fact of fraudulent activity,which are currently combined into one production. The defendants are charged with committing crimes under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

 

[Teacher]

In St. Petersburg, police detained system administrators who worked for phone fraudsters

Employees of the Department for Organizing the Fight against the Illegal Use of Information and Communication Technologies of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region detained a 16-year-old boy on suspicion of committing a crime related to illegal access to computer information.

"It was previously established that the young man provided technical support for the activities of fraudulent call centers. All instructions and instructions came to him from curators located on the territory of Ukraine.

According to reports, the suspect found a vacancy for a specialist of this profile with a monthly reward in cryptocurrency in the shadow segment of the Internet. A prerequisite was the availability of technical skills to maintain the functioning of equipment that provided substitution of numbers when calling citizens of the Russian Federation from Ukrainian call centers. In other words, the scammers called from the territory of a neighboring state, and the victims saw the numbers of Russian operators on the screens of their mobile phones.

In the city on the Neva River, the suspect rented a one-room apartment, where the organizers of illegal activities with the help of a courier service delivered the appropriate equipment: four GSM gateways, two thousand SIM cards, as well as a laptop with software that allows making calls via the Internet.

For the purpose of conspiracy, the young man changed rented apartments every week, and also replaced SIM cards in sim bank slots at least once a day.

As a result of further operational search activities, the police found the trail of two more accomplices, who also served as system administrators and worked under similar conditions.

In addition, the eldest of them received about three thousand SIM cards from Moscow every week, which he distributed among his accomplices.

Several criminal cases have been initiated, which are currently combined into one production. The defendants are charged with committing crimes under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. They chose a preventive measure in the form of remand in custody. The preliminary investigation continues, and all participants in the criminal scheme are being identified, " said Irina Volk, an official representative of the Russian Interior Ministry.

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