Fraudsters stole 100 million rubles through the "dead souls" of the Pushkinskaya Karta project

According to Interfax, with reference to the data of the head of the department, Yuri Chikhanchin, it was possible to identify the attackers with the assistance of the FSB. The suspects have been detained and their assets have been seized.

"Where the budget appears, a criminal necessarily appears", - Rosfinmonitoring explained.

Chikhanchin said that the Pushkin Map project was launched in order to give young people the opportunity to visit theaters, museums and exhibitions.

The "Pushkin Card" is provided to Russians aged 14 to 23 years. The nominal value of each card is 5000 rubles per year. This money can be spent on attending cultural events.

"But then a criminal group appeared, which made fake people and appropriated one hundred million rubles. Now it has been identified", - he explained.

The attackers were engaged in making fake lists of people who could allegedly claim to receive funds under the "Pushkin Card". However, it later turned out that the recipients of the funds claimed by the suspects turned out to be "dead souls": they didn't really exist.

"Now the entire criminal group has been identified," said the head of Rosfinmonitoring.

According to Chikhanchin, the criminals have now been arrested. The scheme by which they acted turned out to be similar to the scheme of misappropriation of funds under the tourist cashback program.

At the end of 2022, it became known that in In Samara, with the help of "Pushkin Cards", fraudsters stole 15 million rubles from the budget. The attackers were identified and detained.