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- Fake back: a Muscovite woman lost 18 million when trying to refund money for an online course
Fake back: a Muscovite woman lost 18 million when trying to refund money for an online course
A resident of Moscow tried to return the money for an online course, but lost another 18 million rubles, having got to people who misled her, posing as lawyers. Allegedly, the victim was under the influence of scammers for a year. At first, she was offered to refund the money for the course through cryptocurrency, according to her, then they began to frighten her with prison, claiming that a cell with "dirty money" was opened in her name. Cases when fraudsters extort money from citizens by posing as lawyers are far from a rare practice, experts have warned. You can find out what other schemes scammers use and how to protect themselves in the Izvestia article.
From "Reconstruction" to false lawyers
When trying to return the money for the online course "on the development of consciousness and soul," Muscovite Natalia N., according to her, lost 18 million rubles. In March 2024, she signed up for the Reconstruction project, which is being conducted by the Intelligent Humanity School. The participants were promised that after the training they would be able to solve problems with loved ones, create a business and understand the principles of "perfect health".
Natalia told Izvestia that she paid for three months of training and made a deposit of 40 thousand rubles for participation in the retreat. However, in May she decided to withdraw from the project. According to the woman, she felt she was subjected to psychological pressure, control, and humiliation at school.
— Any mistake caused condemnation, after two months I stopped feeling like a free person, — says the interlocutor. — There were additional types of payments: fines, fees for unforeseen expenses. Some of the translations had strange purposes, for example, "to feed the Bean." In total, I gave away about 150 thousand rubles.
When the Muscovite announced that she wanted to stop studying, the organizers of the Reconstruction course refused to refund her funds and deleted her from all Telegram chats without warning.
— I spent two months and one week on the project. When I wanted to return the funds for the third month of training and the deposit, I was told that this was impossible. One online meeting was equivalent to "a fully rendered service for the entire month." This created a trap: by paying a month in advance and attending at least one meeting, the participant lost the opportunity to return the money," the victim explained.
Izvestia sent a request to the school "Reasonable Humanity" and asked for comment on the situation. They demanded to provide Natalia's data, saying that they needed to check whether she had purchased the course.
In the spring of 2024, Natalia asked for help from people posing as lawyers, leaving a request on one of the websites offering refund services for online courses.
— The manager of one of the law firms contacted me on Telegram. He asked me to send checks, and later said that a safe deposit box had been opened in my name on the cryptocurrency exchange, where "money for laundering" was being transferred. A day later, he sent me a screenshot with my name on it. It turned out later that it was a fake," the woman said.
In order to withdraw these funds and "clear her name," she had to regularly transfer large amounts to accounts identified by the attackers. Natalia's correspondence with one of these false lawyers is at the disposal of the editorial staff.
"Natasha, there will be a result tomorrow morning. In fact, they all spin in cryptocurrency and earn crazy money. Let's decide! In the morning, I will have an extract in my hands, and we will understand how to withdraw it back," wrote her interlocutor.
When Natalia began to suspect that the exchange was fake, the attackers stopped contacting her.
— Now I live in Japan, the local police could hardly help me. I was left in a vacuum, I couldn't stand it psychologically and started looking for help from lawyers again," Natalia said.
According to the woman, she was misled four times: all the "experts" she found on the Internet turned out to be unscrupulous persons. At first, the attackers claimed that Natalia's money was "in a French bank in Polynesia," and then in Panama. The false lawyers presented the woman with fake IDs, lawsuits, and bank documents.
So, the Muscovite was under the influence of scammers for exactly one year — from May 2024 to May 2025. The total amount of damage during this time reached 18 million rubles.
Has a case been filed
In November 2025, Natalia submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow a statement "about the theft of funds on an especially large scale committed by an organized group of individuals who operated remotely from the territory of the Russian Federation."
"I ask you to initiate a criminal case under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Fraud committed by an organized group on an especially large scale")," the document says (Izvestia has it). "The scammers organized a multi—level scheme: they created fictitious law firms, fake websites, emails and instant messengers, through which they convinced me of the legality of their actions, lured money away under the pretext of paying taxes, insurance and commissions."
In addition, in June 2025, the victim applied to the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a request to "open a criminal case on four episodes of fraud." According to Natalia, the document has been accepted for consideration, and an audit is underway.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs: at what stage is the inspection and what did its results show?
There may be many more victims in this story, but the nightmare they have endured does not allow them to express themselves openly, says human rights activist Marina Silvestri, who represents Natalia's interests.
— It is possible that pseudo-unionists and "teachers" may be members of the same criminal chain. The attackers could first find out that the client needed a refund, received moral and material harm. It's easy to play "good cop" in such a situation — it's enough to promise gold mountains first, and then make a fake refund. It won't be possible to get out of this trap just like that, there are fines, threats and other levers of influence," she told Izvestia.
What other tricks do pseudo-communists use?
Stories where fraudsters extort money from citizens by posing as lawyers are quite common, Sofya Lukinova, head of the legal department at VMT Consult, told Izvestia. According to her, cases are regularly recorded when "compensation specialists" call people who have already become victims of financial schemes — they promise to return the lost money, but they demand to pay insurance or commission.
— There is another common scheme: callers introduce themselves as lawyers of the bank and claim that the client is allegedly involved in gray transactions, and the consequences can be avoided only by transferring money to special accounts, — she noted.
So, in May 2025, a pensioner from St. Petersburg lost 600 thousand rubles. According to the case file, unknown persons called him, who introduced themselves as a lawyer and an employee of the military prosecutor's office, and tricked him into handing over all his money savings to them "under the pretext of ensuring their safety." And in August, a Novorossiysk resident appeared in court, who extorted 4 million rubles from a woman "for help in ending criminal prosecution."
In September, a resident of Yoshkar-Ola, who had previously been a victim of fraud, transferred another 1.7 million rubles to pseudo-unionists. And in November 2025, a Saratov pensioner lost 30,000 rubles by believing an advertisement about legal aid to victims of scams. In the same month, a fake lawyer was arrested in Bashkiria, who defrauded four clients of 380 thousand rubles.
— The tricks in such scenarios are based on a mixture of official vocabulary, psychological pressure and artificially created haste, — Sofya Lukinova explained. — The victim is told that time is short, and the situation is critical, that allegedly accounts or safe deposit boxes containing suspicious funds have been issued in his name. There are references to fictitious criminal cases, forged documents, and consultations.
In addition, fraudsters can call citizens and offer "free legal assistance," but in fact they are trying to extort personal data from the subscriber, including SMS codes for access to the Gosuslugi portal. Mikhail Bozhor, General Director of the law firm Afonin, Bozhor and Partners, told Izvestia about this.
— Another option is the so—called primary admission lawyers, who, as part of a free consultation, sell a lot of unnecessary services to the client at an inflated cost. And in recent years, false lawyers have appeared who allegedly help recover money stolen by fraudulent crypto exchanges," he said.
A person calling himself a lawyer who offers his services over the phone and without prior contact will be a fraudster in 99% of cases, the expert warns.
Olga Ocheretyanaya, senior lawyer at Right Side, a crypto expert, said that she was contacted by victims who lost funds on fraudulent crypto platforms, and then became victims of false lawyers.
— These "experts" appeared in a miraculous way and guaranteed that the funds blocked on cryptoplatforms would be returned. At some point, they returned to the client and informed him that in order to withdraw funds, he needed to open a special account, deposit another amount into it, and pay taxes. The lawyers provided the client with screenshots of the alleged responses from the regulator, which turned out to be fake," she noted.
How to protect yourself from scammers
Most often, pseudo-thieves are connected as an outsider in order to give status and seriousness to the victim's problem, said Artyom Gavrikov, a cryptocurrency detective and international AML/KYC expert.
— Scammers write letters on the official letterhead of a fictitious company, create websites of fictitious companies, threaten with fake search warrants for your cryptocurrency. And, of course, they promise to close your question for a portion of the fee from the unlocked assets, which you will pay them in advance. But there is no money at this stage of the scheme anymore, most often they have already been cashed out," the expert explained.
To protect yourself, it is important to remember a simple rule — neither lawyers, nor government agencies, nor banks require transfers to resolve conflicts and do not provide emergency services via messengers, said lawyer Sofya Lukinova.
"If a person is informed that an account has been opened in his name on a cryptocurrency exchange and money is allegedly stored on it, this cannot be taken seriously," she warned. — It is almost impossible to create a full-fledged trading account without the participation of the owner himself: proof of identity, access to mail, phone, documents are required. Scammers use this argument to cause fear and draw a person into correspondence.
In such cases, it is necessary to stop contacting and consult with the official support of the exchange that opened the account in person, the lawyer advises.
And Mikhail Bozhor recommended not to disclose personal information over the phone, despite any threats and promises. He recalled that interaction with government agencies in the legal field begins with a personal visit by an authorized employee who presented the documents, or with an official document — a summons to court or to an investigator.
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