In 11 regions of Russia at the same time raids on communication centers for number substitution took place

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB detained 15 people suspected of ensuring the operation of communication nodes for the substitution of numbers to deceive Russians on the instructions of fraudsters from abroad. Searches took place simultaneously in 11 regions of the Russian Federation. This was announced by the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Irina Volk.

According to her, last month information was received about 28 sim-boxes and 2 sim-banks operating in five regions of the Russian Federation.

"Data has been collected on seven thousand subscriber numbers that were used by scammers. It was established that virtual servers registered in the territory of European states were used to provide voice calls. They were designed to combine groups of SIM boxes and their remote administration," Wolf said in her Telegram channel.

As she emphasized, "in cooperation with the GUUR of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and representatives of territorial police units in the Amur, Bryansk, Lipetsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Rostov, Smolensk and Yaroslavl regions, the Republic of Chuvashia, the Republic of Bashkortostan and The Stavropol Territory organized simultaneous searches and detentions."

"As a result, the police stopped the activities of 15 defendants who ensured the operation of communication nodes," Volk stated.

"During the urgent investigative actions, equipment, several thousand SIM cards of various mobile operators, documents and other items of evidentiary value were seized," she added.

Currently, investigators of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and territorial police units are investigating a number of criminal cases on the grounds of a crime under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Various preventive measures have been taken against the detainees. All accomplices of illegal activities and victims of fraudsters' actions are being identified.

The official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia drew attention to the fact that employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia widely use the processing of large amounts of data using artificial intelligence, which makes it possible to calculate the location of networks used by attackers, as well as collect data on their activities of interest to investigators and operatives.