Chelyabinsk, Russia, 2002. In May 2001 Terry, an Australian man scammed by a group of internet scammers, sent his story to Russian Bride Cyber Guide's Black List. Terry not only sent a warning to others but wanted to do more and so continued tracking down the criminals determined to have them prosecuted. He launched a webpage with information on the scammers to collect reports from other victims. In the next step he found and contacted the Russian Embassy in Australia, numerous Russian based newspapers and then various Russian government agencies, including the much feared Russian Tax Police, sending them the scam details. Later he found the official website for Russian government and used it to sent a letter to President Putin about these offenders, not expecting his complaint to ever reach the eyes of the President himself. In his letter to the President Terry implied that it was a matter of Russian honor that these criminals be brought to justice, as they were bringing great discredit on their people and country (???). Unbelievably, the letter got into the right hands, the President himself, who ordered the criminals be tracked down (very doubtful - the letter just was forwarded to the police by one of hundreds of secretaries).
Some months later Terry was surprised to receive Emails from the Russian Police and Interpol asking for details of the scam. Later he was contacted by and questioned by the State and Federal Police in Australia on behalf of Russian investigators, soon the criminals were caught. Terry was one of only 10 men who came forward to testify in the criminal case.
The scammer gang Terry encountered was started by a husband and a wife, Yuri and Anna Lazarev, Russian citizens. They used photos of Anna to lure men, and female acquaintances to collect wire transfers. At first they used the real name of the wife (Anna Lazareva) to collect money but then moved into using names of other females to receive wire transfers from all over the world. Other aliases were Alfia Magdeeva, Marina Chumachenko, Vasilisa Schelkonogova, Anna Porfireva, Olga Trophimova, and many others.
34-year-old Yuri Lazarev made a set of photos of his wife Anna and was posting them at large Internet personals. Scammers then initiated correspondence with men pretending to be a single Russian girl looking for a serious relationship. The plot was a 27-year old virgin who wanted to wait until she finds the right man. She would soon fall in love with her correspondent and ask him for money for visa and tickets to join the man in his country. After receiving money, the gang would stop correspondence.
Later Lazarev made photos of other women and used them to post on the Internet. The women were unaware their photos were used in a scam. The gang was contacting hundreds men a day and used major personals websites with their huge databases to solicit correspondence with the male members.
It is believed that the gang, based in Chelyabinsk, Russia, were some of the first dating scammers that used Internet personals to rip off men seeking serious relationship and marriage with Russian women.
According to Chelyabinsk police, the group scammed more than 1,500 men and extorted more than 1,5 million US Dollars from them, in the period of 2000-2002. Source.
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