Five Londoners Charged Over Russian Coms, the Scam-Call Platform Behind 1.8 Million Fake Calls

Key points

• The UK's National Crime Agency charged five people from London on 1 August 2024 over their alleged role in running Russian Coms, a phone-spoofing service.
• Russian Coms let criminals fake the number on a victim's caller ID, and was used to make more than 1.8 million scam calls.
• The platform was linked to about 170,000 victims worldwide, with average losses of over £9,400 per person.
• Six-month contracts sold for £1,200 to £1,400 in cryptocurrency, promoted on Telegram, Snapchat and Instagram.
• The five accused appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.

UK police have charged five people over Russian Coms, a service that let scammers make phone calls appear to come from banks, phone companies and even the police.

The National Crime Agency (NCA), Britain's serious-crime police force, announced the charges on 1 August. It named Ayoub Sehailia, 28, Zakkaria Sehailia, 30, Usman Din, 30, Denis Ozmus, 29, and Fadila Salem, 53. All five live in London.

The charges include conspiracy to supply articles for use in fraud and moving criminal money. Zakkaria Sehailia faces an extra charge of refusing to hand over phone passcodes to investigators. The group is due at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.

What is Russian Coms and why did criminals pay for it?

Russian Coms was a caller ID spoofing service, meaning software that changes the number a victim sees when their phone rings. If a scammer wants to look like they are calling from your bank's fraud line, this is the tool that made it possible.

It started life in 2020 as a physical handset, then moved to a web app. Customers paid £1,200 to £1,400 in cryptocurrency for a six-month contract, according to the NCA. For that price they got encrypted calls, voice-changing effects, no call logs, international dialling, a wipe-your-handset button and round-the-clock support.

The pitch was blunt: help criminals hide who they really are while ringing potential victims.

How the scam calls worked

A typical call, as first reported by BleepingComputer and detailed in NCA case files, went like this. The scammer would ring a victim, and the victim's phone screen would show a real bank's number. The caller would claim the person's account had been used for fraud and that their savings needed to be moved to a "safe" account. That safe account belonged to the criminals.

Because the number looked genuine, many people believed it. The NCA says the platform was used to make more than 1.3 million calls to 500,000 unique numbers across 107 countries, including the UK, the United States, New Zealand, Norway and France. A later count put total calls above 1.8 million.

Average losses topped £9,400 per victim. The total damage runs into tens of millions of pounds.

How was the platform found and shut down?

The NCA took Russian Coms offline in March 2024 after arresting three men in Newham, east London. Two of them were suspected of being the site's administrators and developers.

The takedown was part of Operation Henhouse, a UK-wide fraud crackdown that led to 290 arrests across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Europol supported the work, and police in several countries have kept building cases against people who used the service to defraud their citizens.

Russian Coms was marketed openly on Telegram, Snapchat and Instagram, which gave investigators a paper trail of adverts, handles and payment routes to follow.

What should ordinary phone users do?

Assume the number on your screen can lie. Banks, police and tax offices will not ring out of the blue and ask you to move money to keep it safe. If a call feels off, hang up, wait five minutes, and ring the organisation back on a number you find yourself on their official website or the back of your bank card.

If you think you have been targeted, in the UK you can report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040. Your bank's fraud team can also freeze transfers if you call them quickly.