Overview

• Moscow prosecutors say they have filed 1,600 lawsuits totaling more than 1.2 billion rubles in victims’ interests, including 1,540 suits seeking about 1 billion rubles from 'droppers.'
• Novosibirsk officials report residents lost over 2 billion rubles this year with only about 20 million rubles returned, and prosecutors sent 455 recovery claims seeking 137 million rubles, a sevenfold increase year over year.
• Novosibirsk authorities also report asset seizures topping 26 million rubles as part of broader civil-recovery actions.
• Officials attribute most scams to social engineering rather than technical system weaknesses, citing account takeovers, phishing and impersonation tactics.
• Common schemes include hacking Gosuslugi accounts to issue loans, phishing links, calls about intercom or barrier replacements, and messenger audio or video calls posing as law enforcement, with guidance to enable two-factor authentication, use one-time codes, block unknown callers and ignore supposed Central Bank contacts.