Overview
- Regional police say a blogger from Kurgan and two associates are linked to two cases in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region plus 28 in other regions, with preliminary losses of no less than 5 million rubles.
- The Oktyabrsky District Court declined to jail the accused and ordered home arrest for blogger Stepan Chudin and minor Sergey Sidorenko through November 27.
- Investigators describe streams and videos on YouTube that funneled children to a messenger chat or bot with promises of in‑game currency for Standoff 2, where they were asked for photos of parents’ bank cards and SMS codes.
- Searches in Kurgan and Komsomolsk‑on‑Amur seized phones with chats and apps, hard drives, bank cards, and SIM cards, and the suspects gave confessions.
- The case is being pursued under Part 4 of Article 159 of Russia’s Criminal Code for large‑scale fraud, and a third alleged accomplice is under a travel restriction.