A pensioner from Sarov lost 8 million rubles after communicating with scammers.

      On March 23, 2026, at 11:07, Incidents: A criminal case has been initiated in Sarov regarding a large-scale fraud, of which a 71-year-old local resident became a victim.

      As reported by the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Nizhny Novgorod Region, the pensioner contacted the duty unit and reported the theft of all her savings. The total damage amounted to about 8 million rubles.

      From the end of January to the beginning of March of this year, an unknown person contacted the victim by phone and, acting according to a remote fraud scheme, misled her. The fraudster convinced the woman that to protect her funds, it was necessary to transfer money to a "safe account."

      The interlocutor claimed that this would help prevent unauthorized transactions and provide additional protection for bank accounts, and also promised to return the money.

      Initially, the pensioner transferred 3.5 million rubles to the fraudster. Then, over the course of several weeks, she continued to transfer funds, following his instructions. For this, the woman used ATMs of various banks in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

      In the end, the total amount of damage amounted to 7,695,000 rubles, which falls under the category of particularly large amounts.

      A criminal case has been initiated under part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Fraud." The maximum penalty under this article provides for up to ten years of imprisonment.

      Currently, police officers are conducting operational-search activities aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the incident and the individuals involved. The investigation is ongoing.

      Earlier, it was reported that fraudsters in Russia have started using a callback scheme to steal money.

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