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Bank of Russia to escalate fighting against “second-tier” droppers
The Bank of Russia will step up the fight against second-tier droppers, that is, mules who use their cards to receive stolen money from “first-tier” droppers and route it further, explained Vadim Uvarov, Head of Information Security at the Bank of Russia.
According to him, the first tier of droppers includes straw persons, and the second one consists of those who finally receive victims’ money on their accounts. The scheme used by the criminals may provide for three or four such persons or more.
“As for Federal Law 369-FZ, the cooling-off period started working to “cool” about 300 thousand transfers monthly; cards are blocked. And I would like to highlight that 369-FZ entitles the Bank of Russia to block related transactions, that is, to add their details into our database. We have currently piloted this with major banks. It seems to us that it is time to bear down on the second-tier “droppers”, Uvarov said speaking at Antifraud 2025.
The official noted that it is the details of second-tier droppers that the regulator intends to include in the database. This approach was tested in the SBP channel, and now this issue will be considered in the context of regular bank transfers between cards, he added.