Yesterday, September 30, a preventive meeting between students and law enforcement officers took place at BNTU. The students were addressed by Dmitry Koleda, a Senior Investigator at the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus (Sovetsky District, Minsk) and a Major of Justice, and Nikita Bogatov, a District Inspector for Juvenile Affairs at the Sovetsky District Internal Affairs Directorate in Minsk.
Dmitry Koleda began the discussion by outlining the most common threats in the realm of information and communication technologies. He focused specifically on three major cyber-fraud schemes: phishing, the "KGB officer" courier scam, and the hacking of instant messaging accounts.
He noted that phishing is the most prevalent scheme encountered when shopping on online marketplaces. A seller sends a fake link, asking the buyer to click on it and enter their bank card details. The fraudster then withdraws the funds, as the victim has effectively granted access to their card. To spot a fake, he advises checking the domain extension at the end of the link: in Belarus, it should be ".by," and any other ending should raise a red flag.
The speaker also discussed the courier scam. Fraudsters call and convince the victim that a bank account has been opened in their name and is allegedly being used to finance terrorism. To "close the account," they demand that the victim declare a specific sum of money and act as a courier—traveling to various addresses to collect packages without opening them. The senior investigator emphasized that one should never answer calls from foreign numbers and should immediately end the conversation if the caller claims to be a law enforcement officer. Genuine police officers do not ask for personal details over the phone; instead, they simply summon individuals to the station at a specific time. The second speaker, Nikita Bogatov, addressed issues of cybersecurity and the prevention of young people becoming accomplices in criminal schemes. He highlighted Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, which deals with the sale of bank card details. The criminal scheme typically unfolds as follows: an individual is contacted with an offer to sell their card details; the account is then used for the illicit movement of funds, effectively making the seller an accomplice. The inspector warned that law enforcement agencies will eventually track the individual down, and they will face the same legal liability as those who actually transferred the money through these accounts.
At the end of the meeting, students had the opportunity to ask questions. In particular, they inquired whether a recording of a conversation with a fraudster would aid an investigation, asked about the clearance rates for such crimes, and discussed the issue of lost bank cards, passports, and mobile phones.
We thank the speakers for this productive dialogue with BNTU students and are confident that the knowledge gained will help them approach online safety and their own actions with greater awareness.
