A 44-year-old lawyer fell victim to a scam orchestrated by a criminal group from Ukraine. The scammers contacted Moldovan citizens via messages (in Russian) on the Viber, WhatsApp, and Telegram apps.
They claimed that someone was trying to take out loans in the name of the victim they were contacting and, under this pretext, asked the person for their personal and banking information. Subsequently, using mobile banking apps, actual loans were taken out in the victims’ names, and the funds were siphoned off by withdrawing cash at ATMs using tokenized bank cards, as well as through transfers to third parties.
How did the woman manage to save the money the scammers demanded?
After she was deceived and handed over the first portion of the money, the female attorney filed a report with the police, who took the necessary measures to prevent another instance of fraud.
Therefore, when the victim was about to send nearly 450,000 lei to the group, law enforcement officers detained a 31-year-old woman from Ukraine who had come to collect the money (as instructed by the scammers). She was planning to take the money to Odessa by taxi from Moldova.
The courier has been detained and will face trial.
