In Yekaterinburg, a pensioner lost 15 million rubles after a call from a former "colleague."

      In Yekaterinburg, a 71-year-old pensioner lost almost 15 million rubles after communicating with a "former colleague" and "special services officers."

      According to the victim, the story began back in July. She received a call from a woman who introduced herself as a former colleague — the chairwoman of the factory's trade-union committee where the pensioner had worked for many years. The voice sounded familiar to her, so she did not suspect a trick. The "colleague" spoke about an alleged inspection being carried out at the enterprise and warned that a representative of the "competent authorities" would contact her.

      Later, the pensioner was indeed called by an unknown man who said that her personal data had fallen into the hands of fraudsters. To "save" her savings, he ordered her to close all bank accounts, withdraw the money and send it for "verification at the Central Bank." In the following days the woman was in constant contact with a so-called "FSB officer." Following his instructions, under the pretext of "buying an apartment" and "investing," she withdrew all her savings and handed them to couriers. After that the "handler" stopped communicating.

      Several months later, after watching a program about telephone scams, the pensioner realized that she had been the victim of fraudsters. The amount of the loss totaled 14,681,000 rubles — these were her personal savings.

      A criminal case has been opened into the theft under the article on fraud on an especially large scale.