Scammers decided to engage in a new topic – the record high gas price in the EU, which has been established since the end of winter. On the Internet, fraudulent sites are widely advertised on Google and YouTube, offering Russians to become Gazprom’s suppliers and sell gas abroad with a profit of 30% per annum, Russian media reported.
The target audience of the scammers is retail investors with little experience, but a strong desire to make a lot of money on stock trading.
From June to August, 43 domains were registered in the “.ru” domain alone on the topic of Russians’ investments in gas, Yuri Drugach, co-founder of the StopPhish project, told Kommersant.
During the quarter, at least 300 domains with the words “gaz” appear in Runet, including in combination with the word invest, according to SerchInform.
These are scam resources. Fraudsters on such sites offer Russians to resell gas at special prices – “purchase prices are 30% lower for citizens of the Russian Federation,” the advertisement says. The site asks to leave a phone number, and then a very competent specialist talks to the client, Alexey Gorelkin, CEO of Phishman explained.
The cost of gas in Europe on Monday, September 6, reached a new record – $53.68 per MWh, or $654.1 per 1,000 cubic meters, according to the London ICE stock exchange. Since the beginning of the year, the price of gas in the EU has doubled, as has the price of coal.