The security forces searched the Mosca crypto exchanger office, located in the Moscow City business center, and detained seven suspects in the fraud and theft of digital assets.

According to Gazeta, telephone scammers managed to lure Olga Serova from the former head of the Samara Region Development Corporation for almost half a billion rubles in cash. Then the funds were converted into cryptocurrency through the Mosca cryptocurrency and, according to law enforcement agencies, were transported to Ukraine.

Gazeta journalists, citing sources familiar with the situation, said that at the end of 2024, 71-year-old pensioner Olga Serova received a call. The criminals introduced themselves to law enforcement officials and reported that someone was trying to transfer funds to finance the Armed Forces from its bank account.

Fraudsters convinced Serov to urgently take measures and transfer money to them to “pay to a safe account”. In the period from 9 to 19 January, the pensioner withdrew cash from accounts in banks, and also took away from bank cells, where about 350 million rubles and about $ 800,000 were stored, after which she transferred money to scammers.

“The operatives interviewed possible eyewitnesses to the incident, seized and studied records from video surveillance cameras, and analyzed the victim’s telephone conversations,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

During the search in the Mosca office, seven suspects were detained, among them some Borisov, Burkatsky, Abatsiev, Mastyugin and Nevzorov. The “brain” of the criminal group was a 22-year-old resident of Saratov. During a search in his apartment, the investigators found a phone from which Serova called.

Earlier, the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Irina Volk said that the police closed the cryptocurrency exchanger in Moscow City, which worked under the sign of a travel company.