UK authorities have charged five people in connection to Russian Coms, a caller ID spoofing platform that criminals used to make more than 1.8 million scam calls.
The people charged are Ayoub Sehailia, 28, Zakkaria Sehailia, 30, Usman Din, 30, Denis Ozmus, 29, and Fadila Salem, 53, all from London. The charges include conspiracy to supply tools for fraud, handling criminal property, and, in Zakkaria Sehailia's case, failing to provide phone passcodes. They are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on August 14.
Russian Coms launched in 2020 and was first sold as a handset before expanding into a web-based service. It allowed criminals to hide their real phone numbers by making calls appear to come from trusted organizations such as banks, telecom companies, and law enforcement agencies.
According to the NCA, the platform has been linked to tens of millions of pounds in losses and around 170,000 victims since it first appeared. Criminals paid between £1,200 and £1,400 in cryptocurrency for six-month access to the service, which offered encrypted calls, caller ID spoofing, voice-changing features, and other tools designed to help scammers avoid detection.
Before its takedown in March 2024, the platform was used to make more than 1.3 million calls to over 500,000 phone numbers in 107 countries, including the UK, the US, France, Norway, and New Zealand. Scammers often pretended to be bank employees and convinced victims to move their money into accounts controlled by the attackers.