OREANDA-NEWS  Fraudsters have become more likely to use multi-stage schemes with complex psychological manipulations to deceive Russians. About this said the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Irina Volk.

A new method with the "abduction" of a person and the demand for ransom from his relatives has become especially popular. Following this scheme, the scammers first convince the victim that loans have been issued in his name, and then convince him to help in detaining the attackers. At the same time, the real goal of scammers is to insinuate themselves into trust under the pretext of security concerns.

When a person transfers all his money to fraudsters, they go to the second stage and say that those people who allegedly issued a loan in his name found out that he was working with the security forces and decided to take revenge. Gullible citizens — pensioners are most often led by scammers — are persuaded to leave the apartment, stop communicating with loved ones, change the phone number and hide in a hotel or in a rented apartment in another city.

"After that, their relatives receive reports of an alleged abduction with a demand to pay a ransom. Sometimes victims are persuaded to record a voice message or video message to relatives with a request to fulfill all incoming instructions," Irina Volk said.

She recalled that in reality, the police do not conduct any procedural actions by phone and do not offer citizens in messengers to help them catch criminals.