On April 18, 2018, the National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia, as a result of the large-scale operative-investigative measures and investigative actions undertaken within the framework of the fight against cybercrime, neutralized a criminal group consisting of RA citizens, who stole a particularly large amount of money from the bank accounts of a number of citizens using computer technology.

The press center of the NSS informs that according to the factual data obtained during the preliminary investigation of the criminal case initiated by the RA NSS Investigation Department regarding the mentioned case, during the years 2017-2018, the members of the criminal group, having previously studied the data of the users of the social website “odnoklassniki.ru”, selectively targeted 26 residents of the Republic of Artsakh, then created fake pages in the name of their relatives living abroad and started correspondence with the above-mentioned citizens. with, forming a belief that they want to provide financial support to them. Misleading the residents of Artsakh in this way, they asked and received the bank card data, including the passwords, using which they transferred the money on the card accounts to various electronic wallets and bank cards under their control, then cashed them and robbed them.

5 members of the criminal group were arrested in the criminal case, currently the necessary operational-investigative measures and investigative actions are being taken to identify their accomplices and find out the full scope of the injured persons.

Citizens affected by the mentioned crime can contact the investigative department of the National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia by telephone numbers 011-56-27-24 and 010-57-94-07.

In order to solve the problems before it, the RA National Security Service continues to take measures to detect, prevent and disrupt crimes committed by foreign citizens against the normal development of the economy of the Republic of Armenia and the rights of citizens.

In 2017-2018, within the framework of the implementation of the mentioned functions, cases of illegal penetration of computer networks of banks, possession of stored information and especially large-scale embezzlement by transnational criminal groups using computer equipment were also revealed.

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With the intention of stealing from a bank operating in Armenia, a group of Russian citizens interested in opening foreign currency accounts for RA citizens with small sums of money and transferring the received bank cards to them. Then, the members of the criminal group gained remote access to the bank’s computer network by using computer equipment to spread malicious programs, increased the zero balances and withdrawal limit of those cards, after which they withdrew about 160 cash from ATMs operating in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Riga with plastic cards opened in the names of RA citizens. an amount equivalent to one thousand US dollars.

In connection with the mentioned incident, in the criminal case under investigation by the RA National Security Service, 2 citizens of RA were charged with aiding the robbery using computer technology, the identities of other persons involved in the commission of the crime and outside of RA were also revealed, and appropriate measures are being taken to identify and bring them to justice.

According to the preliminary data obtained in another criminal case under investigation by the RA National Security Service, the criminal group consisting of 4 citizens of the Kingdom of Spain, the Republic of Lithuania and Georgia, with a prior agreement to commit a particularly large-scale robbery from another bank operating in Armenia, illegally took possession of the information stored in the computer network of banks operating in the United States: login names and passwords of cardholders. Then, without the knowledge of those cardholders, an amount equivalent to more than 32 million AMD was transferred online from their accounts opened in their name in Armenia. dram and foreign currency accounts, and tried to withdraw money from ATMs, but for reasons beyond their control, they could not complete the crime, because the bank employees in RA assessed the transactions as suspicious, and the accounts were frozen, and the bank cards were blocked.

The identities of the members of the transnational criminal group have been revealed, measures are being taken to identify and bring them to justice.

In the framework of the aforementioned criminal cases, the National Security Service of the RA actively cooperates with foreign authorities and Interpol in order to reveal the schemes of transnational criminal activities, identify and locate all persons involved in the alleged crimes. The mechanisms of activity and the methods used by the criminal groups also appeared to the interested financial organizations in order to take appropriate measures in order to exclude the vulnerability of the banking system.

The National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia urges the citizens of the Republic of Armenia to refrain from transferring bank cards and their passwords to other persons for security reasons and to avoid the situations presented above, and to immediately contact servicing banks in case of suspicious data regarding the movement of accounts.