In Petropavlovsk, officers of the special rapid response unit (SOBR) prevented the transfer of at least 1.1 million tenge to scammers: a 57-year-old resident intended to send the funds as a purported investment in cryptocurrency, reports infohub.kz.
According to Polisia.kz, SOBR officers of the North Kazakhstan Region Police Department Karasay Botpayev and Baurzhan Akhmet were on duty at the "Rakhmet" shopping center. Botpayev noticed a man near an ATM holding a wad of cash and talking nervously on the phone.
The officer introduced himself and showed his service ID, but the man initially did not believe him. Botpayev then called his partner, who was wearing a uniform — only after that did the resident begin to listen to the police officers.
The man explained that he traded cryptocurrency on Binance, but could not explain what kind of platform it was. It turned out that he had seen an online advertisement about earning money and wrote to the contact listed on Telegram. His interlocutors offered him to earn on cryptocurrency and sent him charts of supposed investment returns.
According to police, these individuals had no connection to a real cryptocurrency exchange. The man was ready to transfer money to them, but SOBR officers stopped him. No damage was caused.
Such patrols in shopping centers of the region are conducted regularly — from 9:00 until closing. One officer in uniform monitors public order, while the second works in plainclothes and focuses on preventing internet fraud.
Police urged people not to trust promises of easy money and not to invest in instruments they do not understand, especially on instructions from strangers.
The department also warned about video calls from people posing as relatives. In Botpayev's experience, there have been cases where scammers altered their appearance using neural networks, using photos people had posted online.
If a loved one asks for a money transfer during a video call, police recommend verifying their identity: ask questions whose answers are not known to outsiders. Any financial information should be verified through official channels. If there are signs of fraud, immediately contact the police.
Earlier, "Kursiv" wrote that ahead of Teacher's Day, scammers lure Kazakhstanis to phishing sites with offers of gift sets for educators. According to the Committee on Legal Statistics of the Prosecutor General's Office, they use AI-generated images of nonexistent goods and chatbots imitating sellers to deceive people.