Russian brides that were actually men! 20/06/2002

In 2002, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Russia was called to  investigate an unusual criminal case of "Russian brides". The case was initiated because of several complaints that were  received from  citizens of the USA, Canada and Australia, who tried to find  romance with Russian girls via the internet.

The scheme of the scam was incredibly simple. Photos of beautiful girls claiming to be looking for foreign husbands were posted on the internet. Brides from Russia are so popular in the world that there were no problems with finding men looking for relationships. Correspondence via the  internet led to the desire to meet in person. Gullible would-be grooms were sending future wives from Yoshkar-Ola money for travel expenses. And then this was the end of the correspondence.

"A US citizen applied to the Ministry of Home Affairs complaining that a Russian woman received from him more than 2000 US Dollars in a fraudulent way", - said Anatoly Platonov, a press-secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

After receiving numerous complaints Russian detectives arrested 4 people in Yoshkar-Ola. The most interesting thing is that it was men who were making the correspondence with their would-be grooms and not women. The "beauties" were there only to receive money transfers. They were paid $50 for receiving each transfer,  no matter how big it was.

"The investigation is to find out how long this group was operating. One man in this group was formally charged according to the article 28 of the Russian Criminal Code "for computer crimes"", - says Platonov.

According to the investigators, the financial damage made by this group to foreign citizens can be hundreds of thousands of American dollars.