Investigators in Ukraine have discovered a plan that uses a variety of financial schemes, some using cryptocurrency, to prey on citizens of the nation and the European Union. Members of the criminal organization contacted their victims using call centers in order to obtain personal financial data. Cryptocurrencies are legal in Ukraine.

Fake Ukrainian Call Centers Promise Foreigners Excess Profits From Crypto Trading

A criminal organization that ran plans to steal money from people in the country and many EU countries has been dismantled by agents from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Main Investigative Department of the National Police of Ukraine. Investors were invited to take part in exchange trading of digital assets, securities, and commodities by the group’s members.

Investigators discovered that in order to get credit card information, the con artists set up a network of contact centers and pretended to be representatives of state banking institutions. They were able to alter their phone numbers so that they seemed to be the official numbers of the banks by using sophisticated hardware and software.

The scheme’s operators used fictitious websites and decentralized platform to trade in stocks, gold, oil, and fiat and digital currencies. The National Police of Ukraine explained in a news statement issued on Tuesday that in order to entice investment capital, they made promises of excessive profits in a short amount of time.

Additionally, the scammers got access to a database that contained the personal details of foreign residents who had previously been the targets of similar schemes. They offered to seek down and return the victims’ stolen cryptocurrency in exchange for a “commission” on behalf of a purported “Community of cryptocurrency brokers.”

These individuals received information concerning the payment of the commission to accounts controlled by the participants in the criminal scheme after accepting the nonexistent entity’s services. The “brokers” abruptly cut off communication after receiving the money, and the missing cryptocurrency was never recovered.

Computer hardware, mobile phones, and documents attesting to the illicit operations were seized during searches by Ukrainian law enforcement at the contact center addresses. The criminals might receive up to 12 years in prison if they are found guilty under the terms of Ukraine’s Criminal Code of large-scale organized fraud and the use, distribution, or sale of harmful software.