They are cheating military personnel and families with many children out of state aid.
In Lviv, a network of fraudulent call centers has become active, cheating millions of hryvnias from gullible citizens by creating fake chatbots for the Support program and inventing «investment funds for the military on the front line.» The network, as it turns out in the investigation of the Informator, is headed by Bohdan Savka, known as Agent German. He received his nickname because his great-grandfather fought on the side of Nazi Germany and participated in the work of the occupation administration of Lemberg (Lviv).
Now the great-grandson has apparently awakened his genetic instincts and decided to turn the western capital into an enemy casemate again. But this time, he’s using a network of fraudulent call centers.
Bohdan Savka. Work in IT, but there is a nuance
The scheme of scamming people out of their money using fake chatbots or calls allegedly from the support service of a bank/insurance company/OLX or even Silpo has long been no surprise.
The flow of people falling for psychological games and manipulations does not stop, and the field itself is becoming more and more technologically advanced, with the use of robot callers, artificial intelligence, and neural networks.
It’s no wonder that Bohdan Savka, a Volyn resident, after graduating from the National Technical University in Lviv, was looking for a more monetizable application of his IT knowledge than just being a tester or a junior at some IT gallery. The idea was inspired by the Diia app and the government’s digitalization course.
Millions of unprepared, financially and technologically illiterate citizens ready to trustingly share all their savings with fraudsters — this is the picture that caused Bohdan Savka to have unhealthy trembling in his hands and excessive salivation.
What is known about Bohdan Savka?
According to public records, Bohdan Savka was born on 28.04.1998. His father, Ihor Savka, born in 1957, founded a number of companies in Lviv, such as Zaluks, Alumplast Lviv, as well as Laugna-ZN, Berkut, and Comfortbud, which have already gone bankrupt. According to rumors, it was due to money laundering.
Bohdan Savka tried his hand at numerous fraudulent schemes in the EU, where he deceived European pensioners (pyramid schemes). A year and a half ago, he founded a branch of the Milton Group in Lviv. Judging by the fact that he now drives two BMW M850s and 640s with license plates BC5871RR and BC1870RE, respectively, things are going well.
The fraud mechanism relied on by Agent Nimetz spread after the introduction of the Diia app in Ukraine, and even more so after the coronavirus pandemic, when the state paid financial assistance to its citizens of various categories. It is about extorting money from the least socially protected and uneducated people through detailed Diia apps, chatbots, and a fake «support service.»
People are offered to «double» or «triple» the amount of support, invest it in cryptocurrency, take out a loan against it, etc.
After the start of the full-scale invasion, schemes with fake payments from international organizations were added, which can be obtained by simply sharing your card details and the pin or CVV code on the back with unknown people. Ivanna Starolyubova, Bohdan Savka’s common-law wife, is responsible for this part of the Nimets’ call centers. She hails from Khmelnytsky, where she graduated from the law department of the Khmelnytsky Institute of Social Technologies at the University of Ukraine, a private university for undemanding applicants with money. Funding for this project was provided by Ivanna’s father, a local prosecutor overseeing drug trafficking.
So it is not surprising that Bohdan Savka and Starolyubova met at a rave party in Ternopil, when they snorted cocaine together in the same company.
No pity for the military
But there is one topic that Agent Nimets does not let go of. And this is the theft of military personnel. This scheme emerged after the appearance of high payments for military personnel working on the front line. Psychologists in the service of the devil correctly calculated that, while fighting, a soldier does not think much about saving or accumulating funds that come to the card from the state.
The wife has gone abroad and is being held by the local government, and it’s boring to sit in a trench — why not play in an online casino, watch paid porn, or try your hand at the forex market or cryptocurrency business? This is how our defenders think, according to fraudsters. So they are massively targeted with ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter about «incredible opportunities» that will be «secretly» told only to those who are «real men» and serve on the front line.
This is the kind of story that Agent Nimets’ network of call centers is engaged in. One of his latest «tricks» is an «investment mutual fund» specifically for military personnel. Depending on the situation, servicemen may be offered investments in key Silicon Valley companies, startups, or «conservative assets» such as oil or gas fields. In the end, «The German» doesn’t care what he invents — only 100 thousand hryvnias from the front line didn’t linger too long in the soldier’s accounts. Still, even 30 thousand hryvnias would be useful for such a «good cause».
Bohdan Savka and his Paradise for crooks
Why did the Nimets’ fraud call centers settle in Lviv? The first factor is that the best IT professionals in Ukraine have gathered here, who are not going to go to war (because they moved away from the front line), and therefore do not feel any extra sentiment for the military. Secondly, they have a quick opportunity to move across the border if necessary (the multimillion-dollar fortunes of the «scouts» allow them to do so). Third, Lviv has historically been a center for such services: online casinos, drug dealers, online prostitutes, and even rumored arms dealers have had their call centers here. A number of shopping and office centers in this city — of course, away from the eyes of tourists in residential areas — were built specifically for the needs of illegal call centers.
Recently, the Verkhovna Rada decided to set up a temporary investigative commission to investigate possible fraud and other illegal activities in the financial services sector that are carried out using information, electronic communications, information and communication systems and electronic communication networks.
«The Commission will be investigating alleged illegal activities related to illegal financial transactions and fraud by call centers, pyramid schemes, and financial and educational organizations operating without the appropriate permits,» the statement said.
From what is known from open sources, such a commission should move to Lviv for a few weeks to feel the «atmosphere.» Nimets call centers are local «market leaders». Their turnover is estimated at several million dollars (!) of lured funds per week (!). No prison security services of Privatbank were even close to the IT team that put these processes on stream. New employees are hired through advertisements for «traffic arbitrage» or «customer service».
Starolyubova and her subordinates Timur Dybailo and Felix Grucharidze are also actively recruiting students in their final years at Lviv and Ternopil universities majoring in economics, entrepreneurship, and marketing. The work of the network, which already has more than 15 call centers in Lviv and the regions, should have attracted the attention of law enforcement long ago.
However, in the City of Lion, it is not customary to talk about how much dirty money you have received from illegally deceiving gullible citizens. Therefore, the security forces — from the National Police to the SBU, from the BES to the Tax Service, from the courts to the prosecutor’s office — are simply silent. Let’s wish the Verkhovna Rada PIC good luck and see if they can get the defenders of the law to talk. Or, at the end of the investigation, they themselves will become part of the scheme. Only time will tell.