Rubles. Euros. Dollars. Gold. One of the biggest thefts

[✨ Megiddo]

A 77-year-old St. Petersburg resident handed over nearly 182 million rubles worth of cash and valuables to telephone scammers after several days of conversations about the need to "declare" her savings. At the pensioner's request, her son personally delivered tens of millions of rubles, currency, and hundreds of investment coins to couriers. The woman contacted

the police on September 26. According to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, unknown individuals had been calling the pensioner for several days, urging her to "declare" her savings. This cover story is a common social engineering tactic , where criminals coerce victims into following their instructions without hacking their banking systems or devices. The scale of the losses was unusually large, even for a telephone scam. The woman's son handed over 77.3 million rubles, 120,000 euros, and $2,000 to the couriers. In addition to cash, the criminals received 422 investment coins and five gold coins worth approximately 42.5 million rubles. Police estimated the total damage at 181,786,000 rubles. Investigators have opened a criminal case for large-scale fraud under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code. On the evening of September 29, officers detained a 31-year-old resident of the Chelyabinsk region at the Moskovsky railway station, believed to be one of the couriers in the scheme. According to preliminary police information, the man found his "job" through a messenger app. Unknown handlers sent him addresses where he was instructed to collect money and valuables from victims, followed by the coordinates of hiding places. The courier left the items at the designated locations, in some cases burying the packages. A court has remanded the alleged courier in custody. Police are investigating his possible involvement in other incidents and are searching for other participants in the scheme. Investigators have not yet reported whether the money, currency, and coins handed over by the pensioner have been recovered. The phrase "declaring" or "verifying" household savings has long been used by telephone scammers as a pretext to trick people into removing cash from the home. A genuine declaration of funds does not require handing over savings to strangers, couriers, or government officials. The demand to hand over cash for verification, protection, or declaration is, in fact, one of the most obvious indicators of a fraudulent scheme.