"Mail of Russia" revealed a gang of fraudsters, who sent bricks instead of electronics

If earlier for the purchase of bricks at the cost of the phone and the cash in hand it was necessary to be in a dark doorway, now it is enough to use an unverified online store.

Pochta Rossii has published an entry in which it reports on the disclosure of a gang of fraudsters who have sent various items to customers instead of expensive equipment: from glasses to bricks. The investigation was conducted together with law enforcement.
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The scheme worked simply. Through fake online stores, fraudsters "sold" various goods to the citizens of the Russian Federation, mainly expensive equipment, such as smartphones or tablets. After a cash on delivery, the victim was sent a package with a brick fragment, a glass, a bottle of water, or another object of a suitable mass.

Back in 2016, a series of reports of thefts on sorting points or in post offices swept across Runet. Deceived buyers actively shared their stories on the Internet, most often in social networks or on the entertainment resource Pikabu, where these stories often came out in the top rankings. Due to the low level of confidence in the postal service against the background of similar news, it was mail that was the “extreme” in the delivery of bricks instead of equipment.

Scammers worked on a well-established scheme. On the Internet, a fake store opened, which took "orders". For a month (this was the average life expectancy of the site), fraudsters took orders for several million rubles. After, cash on delivery package was sent to the victim. All parcels were sent without an inventory of the contents. The scheme worked, as many do not inspect / open the package immediately in the department, but they do it at home. In addition, all claims were directed against the “Post of Russia”, and not against the “seller”.

“As part of an audit carried out by the security officers of the Post of Russia, it was established that the postal items were surrendered to fraudsters for shipment in the metropolitan postal offices in closed form without an inventory of commodity investments,” the Russian Post website said.

It was this information that the post office handed to law enforcement agencies, which detained one of the participants in the group upon receipt of cash on delivery for the next parcel with stones instead of equipment.

According to the “Post of Russia”, a criminal group of at least five people received payments imposed in the amount of more than 6 million rubles only for January 2017. The total amount of damage is tens of millions of rubles.

Theft of equipment at the post office is not only a Russian phenomenon. Other services, including Amazon, are occasionally missing from smartphones or tablets from parcels and packages. Most often, one of the employees at one of the stages of shipment reveals the post, removes the device, and instead puts a piece of wood, brick or tile of a suitable mass. Counterfeit online stores also existed previously, but the main goal has always been the theft of personal data. Schemes involving mail in the fraud of customers through the sending of dummy packages by cash on delivery in Russia have not been observed in recent years.