In St. Petersburg, an 80-year-old pensioner became an accomplice of scammers, believing in a “special operation”

In St. Petersburg, an 80-year-old local resident became an unwitting accomplice of telephone scammers and personally took 6.5 million rubles from her peer, sincerely believing that she was participating in a secret special operation. This was reported by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city and region.

The story began on September 7, when an 80-year-old woman living on Italianskaya Street contacted the police. According to her, a few days earlier, unknown people convinced her to transfer all her savings to a stranger under the pretext of “saving them.” The Petersburg woman realized that she had become a victim of deception only three days later and immediately went to the police.

During operational search activities, officers from the September 11 Criminal Investigation Department located and detained the suspect. She turned out to be another 80-year-old St. Petersburg woman, who, according to investigators, also became a victim of the same scammers and acted on their instructions. The swindlers convinced the pensioner that she was assisting law enforcement agencies as part of some special operation and, under this pretext, sent her to another elderly woman for money.

A criminal case has been initiated into the incident under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Fraud on an especially large scale”). The police are currently continuing to investigate and identify all persons involved in the crime.