The key facts

  • A 23-year-old St. Petersburg resident tried to exchange currency through an online acquaintance and lost 3.7 million rubles
  • The case was reclassified from fraud to robbery; a 25-year-old unemployed man was detained
  • The victim managed to recover the money only partially

A currency exchange turned into a loss of 3.7 million rubles

In St. Petersburg, a 23-year-old woman lost 3.7 million rubles while trying to profitably exchange currency through an acquaintance she had found online. This was reported by the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. During their communication, the man offered to exchange currency for her, and the parties agreed to meet in person on Zvenigorodskaya Street. There, the young man took the woman's money but never handed over the currency, after which she turned to law enforcement.

Reclassification of the case and the arrest

Initially, police opened a case on fraud charges, but later reclassified it as robbery. The suspect turned out to be a 25-year-old man who has no official employment; he was detained. The victim managed to recover part of the stolen amount, but the money has not been fully returned — sources do not report on the final compensation of damages or the fate of the criminal case.

Similar cases in other cities

Gazeta.Ru also recalls similar incidents. In Krasnoyarsk, an 18-year-old young man fell victim to scammers: unknown individuals tricked him into revealing a code and then began threatening him. The young man let a 'specialist' into his apartment, who opened the safe with an angle grinder; in total, the family's savings worth 30 million rubles were stolen. In addition, it was previously reported that a Moscow resident was detained in St. Petersburgfor stealing a pensioner's savings in rubles and foreign currency. What these episodes have in common is a scheme of remote deception followed by the seizure of savings; however, each is a separate case, and sources do not claim any connection between them.