Изображение: МВД
The press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has warned of a new scheme used by phone and cyber fraudsters. They have begun staging child kidnappings.
According to the press service, a resident of Minsk contacted the city police after receiving a call from an unknown person who said that her 15-year-old daughter had been kidnapped. The woman was sent photos of the girl and rooms inside an apartment, and was demanded to transfer money to a cryptocurrency wallet.
After contacting the police, the woman went home but did not find her daughter there. Within two hours, police officers found the girl at one of the suburban cafés. She was unharmed.
“A few days earlier, the schoolgirl received a call in a messenger from someone claiming to be a courier from a marketplace, who told her about a parcel. Under the pretext of уточing the delivery address, he asked her to dictate her email address and a code from a message. She complied and followed a link from the email.
Later, fake law enforcement officers contacted the minor with a story that criminals were carrying out illegal transfers abroad in her name. In order to prevent her parents from being sent to prison and herself from being placed in an orphanage, they ordered the victim to search the house for savings.
When the ninth-grade student did not find any money, she was forced to take part in a ‘special operation’. On the scammers’ instructions, the teenager went out of town, switched off her phone and removed the SIM card ‘to avoid wiretapping’,” the Interior Ministry said.
The police are conducting a check.