A courier for an organised crime gang believed to have scammed a man out of £90,000 has been arrested in a PSNI sting during an arranged “pick-up” of cash from the victim.
Danylo Kifa (20) of Devon Road, London is charged with possessing and transferring criminal property as well as assisting in fraud by collecting £15,000 cash.
A detective constable told Enniskillen Magistrates Court the charges could be connected.
She explained on September 2 staff from the Ulster Bank in Strabane made police aware of concerns for a customer making unusual cash withdrawals.
It transpired he had fallen victim to a “romance scam” in April then round two months ago he was contacted by a ‘Mr Jordan’ who claimed to work for a legal firm in Turkey offering to recoup the loss.
The injured party agreed and was appointed a caseworker named ‘Violetta’ who maintained contact, with her messages becoming “personal and romantic in nature”.
Last month she told the injured party that in order to start working on his case the company required £10,000.
He agreed and a courier collected it from his home.
Violetta said a further £30,000 was needed and when the injured party said he couldn’t manage this, she suggested £15,000 which he agreed.
It was while withdrawing these funds, bank staff alerted police.
A sting was set up and shortly after 5pm on September 13, Kifa collected a package which he believed contained cash, but was in fact a decoy.
He was intercepted by police and arrested.
During interview he described himself as a Ukrainian national with residency in London and gave a full account of his courier work.
While he didn’t believe this to be scam-related, he suspected it may have been to avoid tax.
Kifa said he was contacted by a friend in Ukraine who offered him a job working for a company called ‘Titan’ which specialised in cryptocurrency conversions.
His job was to collect cash from clients in the UK and deliver it to drop-off points.
The detective said the defendant “claimed to have no knowledge of a scam and believed the injured party was a client who requested the cash to be picked up to be converted into cryptocurrency”.
He stated codewords changed frequently, usually in Russian and the one in use when arrested was ‘Violetta’.
Refusing bail, District Judge Alana McSorley said: “This was a well-executed police interception.
“This appears to be a larger criminal activity which sounds like a sophisticated network of deception. I think the defendant was well-schooled in his responses to police.”
Kifa will appear by video-link at Strabane Magistrates Court on October 14.