Scammers impersonating a war reporter on Telegram exposed in Cherkasy

The Cherkasy police have exposed two locals who had been defrauding people by impersonating a war reporter, the cyber police reports in a Facebook post.

The scammer detained. Photo by the National Police

According to the police, a man aged 36 and his cohabitant aged 33 created a fake Telegram channel to pose as a well-known war journalist and public activist and collect donations for a supposed drone detector fundraiser.

“The suspects' outstanding cynicism is evident from their attempts to scam money out of soldiers fighting on the frontline,” the cyber police said.

They added that they had followed the money and learned that the fraudsters were using the ATMs in the city to cash the donations received from the victims to the accounts they control.

As reported earlier, scammers have been creating fake Telegram bots that visually mimic the official chatbots of banks, government institutions, and charity platforms. Their goal is to steal users’ personal data and withdraw money from their bank cards.