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Internet centers siphoning money from Russians amass in Ukraine — interior minister

According to the statistics from the Russian police, cybercrimes amount to 40% of the total number of crimes

MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Scam centers aimed at siphoning money from Russian citizens via the Internet are mostly located in Ukraine, Russian Minister of Interior Vladimir Kolokoltsev said at a meeting of the Board of the Russian Interior Ministry.

"Criminal proceedings on fraudulent extortion of money from Russian people via the Internet currently point to Ukraine," he said.

According to the statistics from the Russian police, cybercrimes amount to 40% of the total number of crimes. Over the last year, this share has increased by 13%. To fight the cybercrime, the police have increased the personnel of the specialized units by 1,500 people, have made responsibility for some criminal acts harsher, and have taken additional measures on protecting accounts of the Gosuslugi public services portal.

"Methods of countering cross-border access to communication services by criminals are being honed. In the period under report, roughly 1,200 bank SIM cards and 2 million SIM cards of various operators have been seized," the minister said, recalling that a limit has been imposed on how many telephone numbers a citizen can register in one’s name.

The minister also believes that introducing the fixed period of time between the formalization of the loan and the collection of the money was an important step. "According to the specialists' research, half of the time the loans, monetary resources from which are stolen remotely, have banks as their recipients," he added.

In 2025, the Russian Ministry of Interior plans to continue the development of the legal framework for combating cybercrime, the minister said. The ministry has developed a concept of a state system of countering such crimes.

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Internet & Telecom

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