The organizers of a Chernivtsi call center who defrauded Kazakh citizens will stand trial

Prosecutors from the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor’s Office have completed the pretrial investigation and filed an indictment with the court against the organizer and seven members of a transnational criminal organization. 

According to the investigation, the suspects set up a large-scale call center in Chernivtsi, whose operators defrauded 114 citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan over the course of a year, for a total of more than 30.5 million hryvnias. 

The fraudulent scheme was based on psychological pressure and the misuse of the victims’ personal data: the perpetrators called citizens posing as employees of the National Security Committee and the National Bank of Kazakhstan, convincing them that their savings were at risk, and forcing them to transfer money to “secure accounts” under the perpetrators’ control. Coordination of activities and tracking of the stolen funds were conducted via private chats on the Telegram messaging app. The illegal operation was shut down in September 2025 thanks to the efforts of a joint investigative team comprising Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the Kazakhstani cyberpolice. Currently, the group’s leader and four of his accomplices are in custody, while the other suspects are subject to preventive measures in the form of house arrest and detention with the possibility of bail.

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

The SBU dismantled a call center in a Vinnytsia prison that was defrauding customers of a well-known bank.

Thanks to international cooperation, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, together with colleagues from Europol, Eurojust, and law enforcement agencies in the Republic of Moldova and Romania, dismantled the fraudulent call center, whose members were swindling money from citizens.