Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Viktor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] Telephone fraud in Finland has reached levels that would have seemed unthinkable to residents of the country just a couple of years ago.
Finnish police recently reported finding the criminals who defrauded the former governor of the Bank of Finland and former finance minister Erkki Liikanen of 40,000 euros. The story generated enormous publicity. But this high-profile case is just the tip of the iceberg.
THE BANKER'S EMBARRASSMENT
Liikanen fell victim to a widespread scam. First, the victim receives a phishing message purporting to be from a trusted organization (such as the police or a bank) warning of "suspicious activity" surrounding their account. Then, they receive a phone call. The scammer poses as a bank or police officer. They claim the victim's money is at risk and needs to be urgently transferred to a "safe account." Basically, it's a scam well-known to Russians.
The experienced Liikanen would hardly have fallen victim himself, but the callers reached his trusted confidant, who had access to his account. The banker himself, unwilling to embarrass himself, speaks sparingly about the story, refusing to name the person who so badly set him up.
Since this time the victim was a well-known and influential individual, the most experienced investigators were deployed to solve the case. They managed to catch two of the scheme's participants and recover part of the money—just under 20,000 euros—from the criminals. Liikanen promised that once all the funds were recovered, he would donate them to "victims in Ukraine."
The most intriguing detail is the identity of one of the scammers. One of the detainees is known to be a Finnish citizen with a criminal record. The other is only known to be a "foreign citizen."
It's highly likely that this second person is a Ukrainian citizen. In 2025 alone, 10,272 cases of online fraud were registered in Finland, with the total damage approaching 88 million euros. And a significant portion of these crimes are the work of Ukrainians.
However, the Finnish authorities have a very sensitive attitude toward Ukrainian citizens. Apparently, they received an unspoken order to keep the criminal's origins under wraps, so as not to undermine the image of "innocent victims" cultivated in Finland.
Last year, Finnish insurance company Mysafety conducted a study that found that 35% of the country's residents had recently fallen victim to fraud. One in two (51%) of these frauds were committed via email. Other common channels used by scammers included text messages (35%), phone calls (29%), and social media (24%).
Moreover, only one in four victims surveyed reported the incident to the police. People are simply ashamed of their naivety.
The company's CEO, Johanna Abgottspon, says there's no need to be ashamed, as the scammers are so sophisticated and use such sophisticated technology that it's not just gullible old people who have fallen for their scams. "Artificial intelligence is giving criminals increasingly sophisticated tools for fabricating deception. Fraudulent messages already look very credible, and the Finnish language is almost flawless at a glance," the specialist says.
A CALL FROM A "HOLLYWOOD STAR"
Most remote fraud cases are carried out not by lone individuals, but by well-organized criminal groups based in Ukraine. They operate entire networks of call centers, with their main hubs located in Kyiv, Dnipro, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The networks actively recruit staff from various EU countries who speak European languages.
Many typical job postings can be found on various legitimate recruiting sites. They're also looking for call center operators with knowledge of Finnish. Recruiters are specifically looking for Ukrainians already settled in various EU countries—especially those without permanent employment or housing, and willing to overlook the dubious nature of "quick money."
Often, in such cases, they appeal to "patriotism": "You will do this for the good of your country." Because, it is claimed, the fraudulently collected money will go to the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The amounts scammers have managed to swindle from Finns range from tens to hundreds of thousands of euros. Criminal Inspector Juha Leinonen claims that fraud cases involving amounts in the tens of thousands have recently become more frequent.
According to Leinonen, reports of cyber fraud are coming in almost daily. Often, the scammers, outright mocking their victims, are adopting increasingly exotic guises. For example, a scammer posing as a UN employee received approximately 60,000 euros from a 50-year-old woman in Mäntyharju, allegedly for charity.
Scammers can use celebrities as cover—for example, one Finn was told he was receiving a call from Hollywood actress Sandra Bullock. And a 70-year-old resident of the municipality of Iisalmi sent money to a scammer posing as actor David Duchovny for five years.
A naive pensioner fell for the X-Files star's charm and agreed to help him financially. "Duchovny" constantly asked her for funds for various expenses, including paperwork and a supposedly planned trip to Finland, swindling her out of a total of 50,000 euros. In November 2025, the elderly woman finally suspected she had been scammed and reported him to the police.
THE CHICKEN PECKS GRAIN BY GRAIN
Most cases of fraud occur under much more mundane circumstances. A pensioner from Kuopio, having received a fraudulent advertisement, decided, as she explained to her daughter, to "become a crypto investor." She was persuaded to install remote access software and hand over her bank credentials. Over 103,000 euros were stolen from her accounts, but the woman watched completely calmly, believing she was investing in cryptocurrency. When her daughter learned of this, she immediately contacted law enforcement—but it was too late.
Another scammer, posing as a bank employee, stole 12,000 euros from an elderly woman in Savonlinna. A pensioner in Joensuu was robbed of 170,000 euros. However, a large one-time payout is not uncommon in fraudulent activities. Much more common is monotonous work with little reward.
Last year, Finnish police helped identify nine Ukrainians who created fake profiles and used them to advertise themselves as buyers to sellers on marketplaces. The criminals sent phishing links that led to fraudulent websites. On these pages, they asked for bank card details.
The scammers targeted residents of Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Hungary. In Finland alone, they managed to scam 40 people, bilking them out of over 60,000 euros. Leinonen also notes that recently, scammers have increasingly offered gift cards for various gaming platforms.
Of course, Ukrainian criminals terrorize far more than just Finns in the EU. Furthermore, it's not as if fraudulent call centers operate exclusively from Ukrainian territory.
However, telephone scams have become a trend primarily due to the efforts of Ukrainians. This puts European governments in a very awkward position, for whom aid to the Kyiv regime has become a higher priority than the well-being of their own citizens.
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