Simple rules for using bank transfers will help Russians avoid participating in illegal financial schemes and criminal prosecution. This was stated by Maxim Semov, Chairman of the Committee for Improving Financial Literacy of the Association of Russian Banks, expert of the NIFI project of the Ministry of Finance of Russia "Myfinance.rf".
He stressed that people who help fraudsters transfer money, the so-called droppers, are not direct participants in the crime, but without their help it could not have taken place. In this regard, the State Duma is considering a bill that provides for criminal penalties for droppers. The maximum penalty under this bill is up to six years of imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 to 500,000 rubles.
The expert advised to follow simple rules in order not to become an involuntary dropper:
1. Do not transfer payment instruments to third parties.
2. Do not disclose codes and passwords that are associated with money transfers and access to personal accounts, whether banks or online services.
3. You will be safe if you do not fall for offers to earn money by transferring other people's money through your card.
Do not believe in fairy tales about optimization, cost reduction – drops are needed to circumvent control procedures, which means they are used for dubious purposes. If funds have been received into your account from an unknown person, the only correct solution is to return them to the sender. To do this, you need to contact your bank and report the fact that funds have been mistakenly credited to your account. If the bank says that it cannot help you in any way, change the bank. This is a standard procedure for returning an erroneously credited amount, there is nothing complicated about it. And in no case use the received funds – they are not yours.
Semov stressed that most people involved in dropping are young people. They do not attach importance to the moral aspects of their actions: they do not care where the money comes from in their accounts, and they do not realize that the transfers they make may be related to the theft of money from their parents.
They do not believe that the money they transfer can go to finance terrorist acts, that drugs and weapons are bought with this money.
What is the punishment for dropping?
The organizers of the schemes often assure teenagers that there will be no punishment for their actions, because there are no articles in the Criminal Code for transferring funds.
Although, of course, this is a trick – drops are punished in the aggregate for participating in fraud, for illegal banking activities, for tax crimes, and so on. In addition, the drop risks blocking accounts and access to them.
Semov called not to be afraid of excessive application of criminal articles to people who became droppers by accident. He noted that now they say that such strict measures may be erroneous. For example, if a person technically participated in the transit of funds for some reason. For example, money came to his card from an unknown person who called and convinced him not to return it, but to transfer it to other details.
But the bill states that the punishment will be applied to those who carry out such activities for selfish motives. That is, those who agreed to pay for their services. Those who knew that they would be paid for transferring dubious money. Those who received money for transferring their card or access to the account.
In addition, the project assumes that persons who are on the list of droppers for the first time and assisted in the disclosure of the crime will be released from liability.
Fraudsters have come up with a new way to deceive Russians. They pretend to be employees of banks or government agencies and ask them to give them a bank card for verification. The victim not only loses his money, but also becomes part of a criminal scheme. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, said that every month 80 thousand Russians become droppers.
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Russia defeated skimming: new technologies ensured the security of issued bank cards
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