OREANDA-NEWS  In 2024, about ten million customers of Russian banks transferred funds to cards that were issued to front persons, sold to fraudsters or shadow businesses. This was stated by the head of the Financial Monitoring and Currency Control Service of the Central Bank, Bogdan Shablya. He was quoted by RBC.

Shablya explained that we are talking about the so-called dropper cards. At the same time, the people who made such transactions, as a rule, were not criminals. It was mainly about the purchase of online casino bets or cryptocurrencies.

"But the figure of involvement is impressive, and the volume of operations makes up a significant share of our country's shadow economy," stated Shablya.

It is noted that about 13 percent of able-bodied Russians, or almost one in eight, were involved in these transfers.

Earlier it was reported that scammers began to cover their tracks using droppers, that is, those citizens from whom they rent bank cards. Thus, crooks get the opportunity to hide the chains of movement of stolen money. By the time law enforcement agencies are able to trace the entire route that the stolen amount has traveled, the traces of the criminals may already be lost.