Two foreigners will be tried for fraud in Minsk

A criminal case has been sent to the court against two previously unconvicted foreigners, 20 and 25 years old, who are accused of fraud committed on an especially large scale by an organized group, the Partizan district prosecutor’s office told the Minsk-Novosti correspondent.

Young people in pursuit of easy money joined an organized criminal group. At the direction of the curator, they repeatedly came to Minsk to assist telephone fraudsters. It should be noted that the defendants understood that they were violating the law and criminal liability was provided for this, but this did not stop them. They were told that if they followed all the measures of secrecy, they would not be able to expose them. So, they constantly changed rented apartments, phone numbers and even destroyed smartphones that were used in the commission of crimes. It didn’t help, they were arrested anyway.

The investigation established that one of the defendants was involved in three criminal episodes, the damage for which amounted to 155,086.87 BYN. The second is to two for a total of 110,352.44 BYN. Victims transferred savings to couriers under the pretext of declaring. One Minsk woman even handed over her jewelry to the pawnshop. It is worth noting that in some cases, the accused did not take money from the deceived citizens themselves – it was done by other victims who were misled, saying that they were assisting law enforcement agencies.

- The accused were not officially employed anywhere, they had not previously been brought to criminal responsibility. The eldest of the defendants on dependents has two young children, commented Deputy Prosecutor of the Partizan district Timur Stuzhuk. Both foreign citizens were charged with the seizure of property by deception (fraud), committed on an especially large scale, organized by a group, that is, in a crime under Part 4 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code, the sanction of which is imprisonment for a period of 3 to 12 years with a fine. The young people fully confessed their guilt and repented. A preventive measure in the form of detention was applied against them.