False security officers opened crypto wallets by force

In Omsk, the court considered the criminal case of a criminal group from Moscow. In the summer of 2021, three of its participants, according to investigators, robbed a former programmer of an international financial company who kept his savings in cryptocurrency. Posing as law enforcement officers, they put the IT specialist in their car, took him to a deserted place and forced him to transfer 25 bitcoins to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by them. The court appointed the defendants from six and a half to nine years in a strict regime colony, obliging them to compensate the programmer for damages in the amount of almost 88 million rubles.

The Oktyabrsky District Court of Omsk considered a criminal case on an attack on a former programmer of a large international financial company. This was reported in the press service of the regional department of the FSB.

According to the materials of the investigation, in the summer of 2021, Moscow residents Maxim Shapochkin, Andrey Kustovinov and Nukri Tsetskhladze received information that a 34-year-old programmer from Omsk holds a significant part of his savings in cryptocurrency and decided to steal them. The operatives do not exclude that one of the former colleagues of the IT specialist could share information with the accused.

Observing secrecy measures, Muscovites came to Omsk separately, rented apartments at different addresses and rented cars. For ten days, they monitored the IT specialist, finding out his usual routes of movement and daily routine.

As stated in the case, on August 9, 2021, the defendants stopped the programmer at the entrance of his house on Kirov Street. They introduced themselves as FSB and TFR officers, showed false IDs, and then demanded to get into their car.

The pseudo-siloviks reported about a criminal case allegedly initiated against the programmer and, for the sake of persuasiveness, showed the procedural documents. For the settlement of the issue with criminal prosecution, the defendants demanded 125 bitcoins.

The IT specialist, according to the investigation, agreed to pay a much smaller amount – 3 million rubles. cash and 25 bitcoins (as of August 2021, they were equivalent to almost 85 million rubles). He transferred bitcoins to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by false security forces.

In total, the production of “guest performers” was about 88 million rubles. After that, the defendants returned to Moscow.

In November 2021, the suspects were detained by employees of the regional departments of the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian Guard. During the search, they seized fake IDs of law enforcement officers. The investigating authorities opened a criminal case under Art. 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (robbery) and Art. 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of forged documents), the arrested did not agree with the accusation against them. In July 2022, they appeared in court.

The verdict was handed down in the case today. The court sentenced Maksim Shapochkin to nine years in prison, Andrei Kustovinov – six months less. Nukri Tsetskhladze, whose actions the court reclassified as fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), was sentenced to six and a half years. All three will serve their sentences in a strict regime colony. According to the official representative of the Omsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, Tatyana Bulikhova, the court ordered the defendants to compensate for the damage caused to the victim.