Missing students helped uncover seven episodes of fraud

The search for two missing tenth-graders in Nizhny Novgorod led the police to a serial fraudster operating in several regions. As reported in the GU of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Nizhny Novgorod region, initially law enforcement officers suggested that the teenagers were under the influence of scammers, and this version was confirmed.

In early November, the parents of two tenth-grader friends turned to the police, concerned about their disappearance. In the apartment of one of the students found a “registration of non-disclosure”, and from the house disappeared a large sum of 700 thousand rubles and 1,850 US dollars. It turned out that the teenagers corresponded in the messenger with a person who posed as a law enforcement officer: he persuaded them to “cancel the dubious operation” and “declar” the money, after which the guys handed the cash to the “connected” on Genkina Street.

Schoolchildren were found in one of the shopping centers of Nizhny Novgorod – they were waiting for the next task from the “curator”, so a new scam was prevented. “Pupils were handed over to legal representatives, their life and health are not threatened,” the ministry said.

The teenagers remembered the signs of the attacker and told the police about them. Soon, the 21-year-old resident of Moscow was detained: it turned out that he was involved in seven cases of fraud in the Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Moscow regions, and the total damage to the victims is estimated at 12.6 million rubles.