Living goods with a deadly disease: how scammers cash in on the sale of animals

Several people who have suffered from the criminal business turned to the editorial office of NI.

Irina Mishina

Little "Scot" Alice lived only 2 and a half months. But her sad story could save hundreds of cat and dog lives. That is why we decided to tell her.

Everything that the owner of the deceased kitten, Irina, who turned to the editorial office, tells, is more like a horror movie. In short, a family with two small children dreamed of a kitten. Irina found a candidate for a four-legged family member on Avito. The seller of the kittens, who seemed very adequate in the correspondence, offered to come and see them with my own eyes. Nobody asked for a deposit. First - a kitten in hand, then - money to the seller. Here you should pay attention to one trick that makes life easier for scammers: Avito hides the phones of sellers, showing a fake number in the account. Thus, the service allegedly “protects” users. You can find out the contact of the seller only if he sends it to you. And so - the seller Incognito. The cost of a kitten to Irina was indicated in the region of 6 thousand rubles. However, when she and the girls came to the seller, she was told a completely different amount: 15,000 rubles. I must say that the sellers of live goods are quite good psychologists: when she saw that the customer came with two little daughters, the breeder realized that the children fascinated by kittens would force their mother to buy a kitten in any case, without bargaining. And so it happened. The question of the promised pedigree hung in the air. When asked about vaccination, they answered that the kitten was injected with serum.

Further events developed rapidly. On the 5th day of Alice's stay with the new owners, she started having problems. Irina immediately took Alice to the veterinary clinic. When they took the kitten seriously, sending it for tests, it was already too late: Alice died in terrible agony, without waiting for their results. An autopsy showed that the kitten was sick with several terrible diseases at once: acute catarrhal gastroenteritis, hyperplasia of the lymph nodes, Alice developed pulmonary edema. Is it worth describing what kind of psychological trauma was inflicted on children who became unwitting witnesses to the torment and death of an animal.

The kitten that was sold to Irina, according to the seller, was 1 month and 10 days old. According to veterinarians, selling kittens at this age is like death. Not a single self-respecting breeder or just a caring owner will give away a kitten under three months of age. The immunity that a kitten receives within 2-3 months after birth with mother's milk protects against deadly infections, from which he has almost no chance to escape without it. Kittens are vaccinated only at the age of 8-12 weeks. In addition, the cat teaches kittens the most important feline wisdom - cat hygiene - at this age. According to the veterinarians, Alice died of panleukopenia, either leukemia or viral peritonitis.

Stories, like two drops of water similar to the one Irina told, are described in social networks. At the same time, the address of the saleswoman who sells terminally ill kittens at a reasonable price appears the same. That is, the same group of scammers appears under different names: Zhanna Arkadyevna, Natalya, Svetlana, Sofya and Nina Letnitskaya. The seller advertises on Avito under different accounts, the ads include "Anna-Maria Cat cattery". As we managed to find out, this nursery belongs to a certain Mrs. Fomicheva, a lady known since the 2010s in the Bird Market. In the social network VKontakte there is even a group of those who suffered from this scam - over 100 people. So far, no one has been able to bring her to trial.

From social media posts.

Marina Filimonova writes on VKontakte on May 1 : “I bought a blue British kitten from a breeder. The breeder's name is Fomicheva Zhanna Arkadievna. For kittens, he gives a metric with the seal of the Anna-Maria Cats cattery. The apartment is also sold by her husband and daughters. Post ads for the sale of kittens on Avito. Kittens are ALL fatally infected with panleukopenia, that is, distemper, coronovirus enetritis and many other viruses. Kittens are not vaccinated and most often die. They managed to save my kitten, but he was sold to me at an age less than this Jeanne indicates. Also, the gender did not match, that is, I took a boy, but in the end it turned out to be a girl. We have filed a complaint with the police and are awaiting a response."

From Vetlana Ryabyshkina , VKontakte message : “They gave a kitten for a child’s birthday. In a couple of days, they transferred 1000 rubles to the seller to book the baby. When my husband brought him home, it turned out that this was not the kitten that was in the photo ... but this is not the most important thing. The kitten has distemper... unfortunately they didn't save it... the child is stressed. The seller did not warn about this, she spoke rudely, she was not shy in expressions. She told us not to go to the veterinary clinic, she said that the kitten would be killed there.

Natalie Dokukina writes on VKontakte: “HELP!!! I suffered from the machinations of Zhanna Arkadyevna Fomicheva. She sold me a sick kitten, deceived with the sex (they bought a boy, and in the veterinary clinic they found out that it was a girl 100%). I fight for the life of the kitten with all my might. I want to go to court with a lawsuit."

A whole website has been created about the fraudulent actions of breeders who sell obviously sick kittens for a small price. There was even a story about them on one of the TV channels , but measures have not yet been taken.

We also decided to contact the seller of kittens and puppies, which appears in numerous complaints from buyers affected by it. The recording of this conversation is at the disposal of our editors. Natalya, aka Svetlana, aka Sophia, Nina Letnitskaya and Zhanna Arkadieva all rolled into one, in response to a question about the breeds and cost of kittens, she named a whole set of rare species at a price of 4 to 7 thousand rubles. All this could not but alert: the prices, for example, for Scottish fold kittens in the cattery start from 45-50 thousand rubles, and Natalya-Svetlana-Nina-Zhanna Arkadyevna has only 4-7 thousand ... The seller answered the question about vaccinations, that the serum was introduced, there are no documents. Provision of metrics from the club - for an additional price. We asked about the possibility of concluding a contract of sale. The breeder was alert: “Why?”. To the question: “And if a kitten or puppy gets sick or something goes wrong with him, will you be responsible for this?” the kitten saleswoman answered with a question: “Strange question, do you want to find out something?”. Short beeps followed and my number was blocked.

Parting with easy money is not easy. Jeanne's "business" is put on stream, as they say. Far from one British cat will live in her apartment, there is also a dog. She sells both kittens and puppies. One cat can give birth to up to 6 kittens 3 times a year. Plus puppies. So it turns out that pets provide life for a business woman. By the way, all the animals live in her room. The breeder does not document the vaccination of animals, only in words. Therefore, the probability of infection of newly born babies is 100%. And the final sale is the same.

A natural question arises: where do sick kittens come from in such a quantity from a breeder? We phoned several Moscow veterinarians. They expressed various versions, but one seemed to us the most plausible. An employee of one of the veterinary clinics in Moscow, on the rights of anonymity, said: often in the process of pregnancy, a thoroughbred cat gets sick. The reasons are different. It can be infection, worms and infections that we bring into apartments on shoes from the street, poor-quality natural food. Kittens are infected from their mother in the womb, they are transferred to veterinary clinics, and those through their channels sell animals through breeders. At the same time, serum is administered to kittens in order to make them look healthy for several days.

We turned to a lawyer, lawyer Lyubov Goncharova , with a request to clarify under what acts punishable from the point of view of Russian law unscrupulous sellers of sick animals fall.

“There is Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “fraud”, but in this case it will be difficult to establish this fact if there are no contracts or other documents on the purchase of an animal from this particular person and examination of the animal immediately after the purchase. In these stories, one can rather find signs of Article 245 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on cruelty to animals and 498-FZ of December 27, 2018 on the responsible attitude towards animals. If it is possible to establish the fact that this particular breeder, the seller, did not treat sick animals, did not provide them with assistance, although they obviously needed it and systematically tried to get rid of them, this may fall under the violation of legislative acts. Unfortunately, our legislation is too liberal in this respect. This makes it possible for the criminal business to flourish, ” says lawyer Lyubov Goncharova.

Indeed, in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland there are animal rights laws. Germany became the first state in the world where the rights of animals are protected by the Constitution. Here are some of its points: euthanasia of healthy animals is completely prohibited; animals are kept under the condition of their obligatory licensing; there is a pet tax. The tax amount is usually 100-150 euros per year. The tax for the second and subsequent dogs will be 200 -300 euros, regardless of the size of the animal. Taxes on cats are less. In Italy, an abandoned cat or dog is a criminal liability: a year in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros. In Spain, for the first time in the world, human and animal rights were equalized. And only here the content of animals is at the discretion of the owner, treatment is possible, and criminal cases in connection with animals are a rarity.

To date, none of the victims has written a statement to the police against Zhanna-Svetlana-Nina Letnitskaya. People who have lost their pets have neither the strength nor the desire to sue the scammer. She, apparently, is counting on it. I would like to hope that all those affected by the breeder understood: when buying a thoroughbred cat or puppy, it is better to conclude an agreement that will stipulate the responsibility of the two parties, as well as medical documents, so that in case of deceit, illness or death of the animal, an unscrupulous seller can be held liable . Because we are talking about living beings. After all, the greatness of a nation and the degree of its spiritual development are determined by how this nation treats animals. Mahatma Gandhi spoke about this.