Gypsies persuade Sverdlovsk residents to go to the special military operation and appropriate the payments for themselves.

      A criminal case has been opened in Sverdlovsk Oblast against Roma who sent a man who had been drinking to the special military operation and stole the payment due to him. After 52‑year‑old Dmitry was sent to the front, he went missing.

      According to his sister Anna, her brother had been drinking and in July 2025 met three Roma on the street in the Verkh-Isetsky district. They bought him alcohol, struck up a conversation and began persuading him to sign a contract.

      “They decided to lure him by deception. They promised that at the SMO Dima would be a volunteer, handing out paperwork there. They worked on him for three days, took him to notary offices and banks. They issued bank cards; by the time Dima realized he had been deceived, it was too late. When he arrived at the recruitment point, a young man said, ‘Who told you that you would be a volunteer? You sign a contract and you go to the front,’” Anna told the EAN outlet.

      Dmitry was soon sent to the 32nd military town, and a few days later to Rostov‑on‑Don. A one‑time payment of 2.5 million rubles instantly disappeared from the man’s card, which he had given to his sister.

      A few weeks later Dmitry went missing. Anna contacted the police, and Yekaterinburg Police Station No. 15 opened a criminal case under the article “Fraud committed by an organized group on a large scale.” The police managed to find and detain Roza and Nikolai Benorovich.

      “The alleged criminal duo was detained and arrested in another region on suspicion of a similar crime. The suspect Rozaliya Benorovich drove a Porsche Cayenne. With a high probability, the criminal case opened by Yekaterinburg Police Station No. 15 will be transferred to the region where they were arrested. There are grounds to suspect that this couple have similar criminal episodes in different regions of the country,” said Valery Gorelykh, head of the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Sverdlovsk Oblast.

      According to EAN, cases in which Roma persuade people who have been drinking to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense and then rob them are becoming increasingly common. Thus, the press service of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court reported the arrest of a Roma man, Oleg Lukyanov, against whom a criminal case has been opened under the article “Extortion committed for the purpose of obtaining property on an especially large scale.”

      According to the investigation, the Roma man, together with another suspect, using violence to obtain a lump‑sum payment, forced people in need of money to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense.

      Earlier in the Urals fraudsters stole 10 million rubles from the widow of a participant in the SMO.