Since the beginning of last week alone, law enforcement officers have conducted 411 searches and seized more than 3,330 pieces of computer equipment, 1,346 phones, 5,238 SIM cards, 20 cryptocurrency wallets and 90 bank cards.
The shutdown of the call centers also eliminated 1,794 operator “workplaces,” Kravchenko said.
Organizers recruited employees with foreign-language skills and trained operators using specially prepared scripts. In many cases, employees were also subjected to polygraph tests to minimize the risk of the schemes being exposed.
Some operators posed as investment advisers offering supposedly lucrative opportunities. Others lured victims onto fake trading platforms, while another group targeted people who had already lost money and defrauded them again by pretending to offer assistance, Kravchenko said.
The scammers used forged documents, posed as lawyers and bank employees and deployed deepfake technology to make their schemes more convincing.
In some cases, after victims lost their savings, the scammers persuaded them to take out loans, borrow additional money or sell property.
The proceeds were converted into cryptocurrency, distributed among electronic wallets and withdrawn through accounts belonging to third parties.
Profits were then invested in luxury real estate, land and high-end vehicles, among other assets.
Victims included citizens of Ukraine, EU countries, Israel and Central Asian states.
Preliminary estimates put their combined losses at more than UAH 100 million ($2.2 million), Kravchenko said.
Searches were conducted in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhzhya and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts.
Twenty-six people have so far been named suspects.
Law enforcement agencies are continuing to identify victims, the organizers of the schemes and the full network of people allegedly involved.