Interior Ministry warns of scam scheme stealing passports under the guise of employment

A fake job vacancy as a way to seize a document

Scammers in Russia have mastered a scheme in which they exploit not trust in banks or government agencies, but a person's desire to find a job. Acting on behalf of employers, they post fake vacancies, and when a job seeker responds, they ask them to hand over their passport, a copy of it, or passport details — supposedly for onboarding. This was reported by TASS, citing materials from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, as Gazeta.Ru writes.

What happens to the document next

The Ministry of Internal Affairs materials emphasize that a person, wanting to get a job, hands over the document 'without thinking much about it,' and it ultimately ends up in the hands of scammers and can be used to steal money. In other words, the goal of the scheme is not employment itself, but access to personal data, through which the victim's funds are then siphoned off.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs' recommendation and context

The agency reminded people of the basic rule: a passport must not be handed over to anyone, no matter what pretext is used. In practical terms, this means that a legitimate employer, at the onboarding stage, does not demand the physical handover of the original document to unknown persons — and a request to 'send your passport for onboarding' before the vacancy's authenticity is confirmed should be treated as a red flag. This publication by the Ministry of Internal Affairs adds to a series of warnings about new methods of fraud: earlier, State Duma deputy from the LDPR Dmitry Svishchev saidthat attackers disguise malicious programs as harmless AI applications for selecting hairstyles, makeup, or cooking recipes, and before that, scams were reported under the guise of 'free' movies and music.