A 42-year-old resident of the Izhemsky District of the Republic of Komi is accused of embezzling 1.5 million rubles. The Russian woman wanted to invest this money in cryptocurrency, the prosecutor's office reported.

According to the investigation, the woman was called by scammers who offered her a high income from operations on a cryptocurrency exchange. The Russian woman believed them, but she did not have any money of her own. Therefore, she deceitfully obtained her cousin's smartphone and through the bank's mobile application took out several loans in her relative's name, the supervisory authority claims. The woman immediately transferred the money first to her account, and then — to the scammers' accounts.

When his cousin learned about the loans taken out in his name, he contacted the police. During the investigation, the accused admitted guilt and compensated the damage caused to the relative. However, a criminal case was still initiated under Part 4 of Article 158 ("Theft in a particularly large amount"). This serious crime could lead to up to ten years in prison for the resident of Komi. The criminal case is now transferred to the Izhemsky District Court, the prosecutor's office reported.

Earlier, due to a similar fraudulent scheme, a resident of Kostroma lost 1.1 million rubles, and a woman from Kursk lost 28 million rubles. In all cases, the victims were contacted by "personal crypto managers" who initially offered to invest relatively small amounts.

In the past year, the number of cases of crypto fraud using deepfakes and identity substitution has increased by 1400%. Moreover, attacks using artificial intelligence bring criminals 4.5 times more money than other methods, according to Chainalysis specialists.