A 41-year-old resident of St. Petersburg’s Frunzensky district has been detained on suspicion of working as a system administrator for foreign IT scammers. The Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the region reported the arrest, which was made by officers from the department responsible for combating the illegal use of information and communication technologies.

The suspect, a previously convicted individual residing at house 20/1 on Dimitrova Street, allegedly responded to an online job posting in March 2025. The position promised a monthly salary of approximately 100,000 rubles, paid in cryptocurrency, for monitoring equipment used to provide IP-telephony.

After accepting the job, the man received a GSM gateway and a laptop via courier, along with online instructions. He installed the equipment in his apartment, and authorities say that more than 5,000 calls were routed through his equipment using 1,200 SIM cards. A special program was used to change the scammers’ foreign numbers to Russian ones.

A search of the residence yielded a GSM gateway, router, laptop, and three mobile phones containing job-related correspondence. Law enforcement officials have linked the suspect to at least seven instances of fraud affecting residents in four districts of St. Petersburg and two districts of the surrounding region. The total damages are estimated to exceed 7 million rubles.