Andrew from Posad
There are many interesting characters among the fraudsters – those that think that they are virtual gangsters. These guys only work with high stakes, big money and loud cases. There are only a few of those, for you will need to be educated, creative and patient to be one.
This is why in most cases people are dealing with small time fraudsters, such as Mohnachev Felix Arturovich and his friends.
At the time of all those crimes, he was 16-18 years old.
- Real name: Mohnachev Felix Arturovich
- Sometimes uses the name Roman Bagamov
- Well known as Andrei from the Sergiev Posad town (Moscow region, Sergiev Posad, Novouglichskoe Highway 75). This is why he was named Andrei from Posad.
- Skype: feliks-39, feliks060493, fill.makin
- Russia’s Sberbank account: 639002209005998943
- Yandex.Money account: 410011465236078
- ICQ: 654488099, 380154625, 636911091
- Assistant: Bikmaev Roman Raisovich
- Place of residence: Kaliningrad, Russia
Despite his explosive nature, the guy has managed to keep himself as well as his team on the flow for over 3 years. The nature of his behavior is quite apparent in one of the topics, where Felix is claiming to find a person, who would help create a personal hosting-company or at least give him a job. His skills allegedly included “Linux server administration. Billing bpanel 2009 administration, tech support, marketing, php, mysql and so on”. Although, he indicated that he was 18 years old, even though he was a lot younger back then. But even this age made people suspicious – too young to know that much. Felix was replying aggressively, with an apparent maximalism that is natural for his age. Some replies looked more like futile threats. But once you would reply a bit aggressively too, he would become quite and a little bit offended too. In the end, the topic was closed and he could not find a job back then. But he managed to demonstrate that he is a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeurs.
So as not to get bored, Felix used various fraudulent schemes, but his most favorite one – e-currency exchange. They knew that some people often need to quickly exchange the e-currency (usually Webmoney). This is why they were monitoring forums in search for corresponding adds.
Once they found the target, they would contact it and would offer their exchange services. A classic scheme would be put in the works afterwards: they would choose a profile of a known exchange expert with a good reputation and a good BL, and that person would accept the money and would exchange the currency to the fraudsters’ purses. But the problem was that the guys were constantly changing ICQ nicknames, covering their identities under the names of popular exchangers. Although quite often it was enough to simply demonstrate another’s WMID and provide own purse, counting on the counteragent’s inattentiveness. It was easier, but the given scheme was only used with the most naïve people. Felix even had the nerve to comment in the topics, where people were trying to find out how to return the money they lost. His replies were quite simple – topic creators received the money and are now trying to slander him. Once the facts and screenshots were added to the discussion, the fraudster would disappear so as not to take part in the debates. Perhaps the ability to process more excuses was too difficult for his small age.
Other options existed as well. Felix would introduce himself as an owner or an employee of a hosting-company, tried to earn trust and would take a somewhat substantial loan. The story of Bikhost.ru is known around the internet. One of the clients contacted with the owner of the service through ICQ. The name of the assistant – Bikmaev Roman Raisovich points at the fact that this story is not going to have a happy ending. The client reported that all websites went down. Bikmaev responds that it is because of losing the banking payment for the server and this is why the data-center is switched off. Due to this situation, he asks for a 3 190 rubles loan. In order to earn trust, he sent an IP scan. Wanting to make the websites operating again, the client agrees. After transferring the money, websites are working again. The client is happy. Using that emotional stage, Bikmaev is offering him to become a Bikhost.ru investor and asks 12 000 rubles “to purchase the SP panel and a new server to install the WDS”. When asked about returning the money, he replies that he will sell % from the earnings. And on the next day the client sees an ad about selling Bikhost.ru. As you can guess, he lost his money for good.
Felix took 7000 rubles from another client and disappeared for 2 months, up until he earned a pretense. Then he reappeared right away and asked to remove the pretense, otherwise he will not be able to return the loan. He received a logical reply – the money can be returned through a monetary transfer. The pretense remained and Felix simply disappeared once more. He received substantial sums of money (for him) and was now preparing for a following fraud.
Felix felt his power and supremacy, so he often appealed to some loud words. Hence, he was looking for new employees for the cdi-host without them knowing about it, at times he would introduce himself as the owner of the hosting companies. But his teenage mind did not take a simple factor into consideration: once a project turns into a brand, people will know the names of its administration. Hence, Felix and his lies were uncovered pretty quickly, so he would close the topic.
He always had things to do. One of his schemes is stealing personal info on the Yandex.Purses users. The internet was filled with letters to new and experienced pursed owners. An email was requesting to verify the account. Yandex would indicate that the letter may be a fraud, but curiosity as well as the instinct of keeping the purse would prevail and people would use the link. You will be transferred to a form, where you will need to check the following fields:
- Payment password
- Recovery code
- Phone number
- Email password
- Date of birth
- And the payment password once more
Page design resembles Yandex trends, but the inscriptions around are a bit suspicious – these are too caring and aggressive at the same time.
The majority of users suspected that something is wrong right away – if you are registered with the service, why should you indicate the email, phone number and, in addition, the email password. Same question goes for the payment password.
Justice finally managed to apprehend Felix and his gang – they are under the investigation of criminal cases. These cases are bound to result in a simple and yet effective rule – you should always check the names of people you work with and you should also trust your intuition.
List of sources:
