“Ghost drones”: how fraudsters earned UAH 11 million on phantom drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine
9 April 12:46
An organized criminal group recently dismantled by the National Police of Ukraine developed a sophisticated fraud scheme aimed at defrauding buyers and sellers of drones for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Over the course of 9 months of criminal activity, the group defrauded at least nine people for a total of UAH 10.7 million without delivering more than a hundred drones. This was reported by the press service of the National Police, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
The fraud scheme
The fraudsters acted according to a carefully thought-out scheme, which, however, was still based on people’s trust. First, they registered a sole proprietorship for a fictitious person, which allowed them to create the appearance of a legitimate business. The tactic of gaining customer trust was a two-step process:
- At the first stage, the group quickly and cheaply delivered “trial batches” of 3-5 drones with partial prepayment, demonstrating reliability.
- After the first deliveries were successful, the fraudsters offered to order large batches at an even lower price, but with full prepayment.
As soon as the customers transferred the full cost of a large batch of drones, the criminals stopped contacting them and blocked all customer contacts.
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The fraudsters did not limit themselves to deceiving only buyers. They also deceived real drone sellers: first, they bought small batches with a deferred payment and paid in full, and then ordered large batches and disappeared without paying.
The criminals immediately transferred the funds received from the fraud to cold crypto wallets or bank accounts of fictitious business entities. From there, the money was cashed and distributed among the group members.
Members of the criminal group, results of searches and legal consequences
The police identified three members of the organized criminal group – residents of Kyiv and Ternopil. The group was led by a 31-year-old organizer who, according to police, together with his accomplices
- searched for potential victims;
- created crypto-wallets and fictitious accounts;
- organized cashing out of funds or their transfer to his own cards.
During the searches in Kyiv, Ternopil and Lviv, the police seized:
- 53 Mavic drones
- 152 silver bars;
- about 740 thousand dollars in various currencies
- two cars;
- mobile phones and computer equipment;
- financial documentation and other evidence of criminal activity.
The three defendants, including the organizer, were served a notice of suspicion of fraud committed on a particularly large scale by an organized group under martial law (Part 5 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code). They face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.
The police reported that they continue to search for possible accomplices and other victims, the number of which may be much higher.
