MOSCOW. April 8 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry have detained five people connected with an illegal virtual communications center, the FSB public relations center said on Monday.
"The Russian Federal Security Service, working together with the Investigative Department of the Russian Interior Ministry, has stopped the illegal activity of a group of people that organized and operated an illegal virtual communications center used by Ukrainian call centers for telephone fraud and for extorting large sums of money from Russian citizens," the FSB said.
Five members of the criminal group have been identified and detained. A court placed them under arrest, it said.
"According to preliminary information, over seven billion rubles were stolen from Russian citizens via just one communications center," the FSB said.
The money stolen by the fraudsters "went through a series of transactions to end up in Ukrainian banks and were used to finance the Ukrainian Armed Forces," it said.
"At the same time, communications services used for the illegal activity and operations of technical infrastructure and telecom equipment were financed via foreign banks," the FSB said.
In the course of searches, "computers and communication devices used for the illegal activity, cash and digital assets, [and] jewelry and luxury goods were seized, and movable property and real estate were frozen," it said.
"Exhaustive evidence of criminal activity was collected," the FSB said.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk told reporters that the illegal scheme had been operating since 2022. "The perpetrators were running special equipment, which substituted the numbers of fraudsters calling from abroad with Russian numbers. The fraudsters identified themselves as employees of financial institutions and law enforcement agencies to persuade Russians to transfer their savings and loans to so-called safe accounts," she said.
Offices were searched in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Sochi, and the Moscow and Leningrad regions, Volk said.
Officers of the Interior Ministry's investigative department have charged the detainees with fraud.