A 22-year-old resident of Minsk lost 23,000 Belarusian rubles (about $8,000) while trying to cash out cryptocurrency, reported the October District Department of Internal Affairs of the capital of the Republic of Belarus.

The girl told the police that she became a victim of deception by an acquaintance. The resident of Minsk wanted to withdraw funds from her crypto wallet and asked a friend for help. He sent her a step-by-step instruction, and the girl followed the directions: she transferred an unnamed cryptocurrency to the specified wallet and waited for the money. By the agreed deadline, she did not receive the promised rubles, and the acquaintance stopped contacting her.

The girl reported her acquaintance to the police, and he was detained. The detainee confessed: he used his friend's crypto wallet data in an attempt to cover up the traces of the crime. After the money was cashed out, the man spent it on paying off his own debts and personal expenses. Minsk investigators opened a criminal case under the article on fraud.

Belarusian fraudsters have increasingly impersonated government services and demanded the transfer of fiat money into digital assets, reported the Minsk police. A 15-year-old teenager from Minsk was first called supposedly by a intercom service and persuaded to dictate a code in an SMS message. During the second call, the scammers pretended to be employees of the Belarusian State Inspectorate for Electronic Communications (BelGIE). The fake energy workers informed that the teenager had just been drawn into a crime. For four days, the fraudsters intimidated the ninth-grader with a criminal case, convincing him to register a crypto wallet and transfer $4000 in cryptocurrency through an 'agency employee'. The young man handed the money to an unknown cash-out operator, and when he did not see the money in his wallet a few days later, he told everything to his parents.

In Russia, thefts are periodically committed under the pretext of investing in digital assets. A resident of Komi believed the words of an unknown person about quick income from cryptocurrency, took out loans for her brother amounting to 1.5 million rubles, and transferred the money to fraudsters.