TENTATIVE SUMMARY DATA: SUBMITTED REQUESTS FOR ASSISTANCE WITH FILING CRIMINAL PROSECUTION CASES AGAINST RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN VISA-AND-TICKETS SCAMMERS 2006-2010

Issued: April 11, 2010 

From May 2006 until April 10 2010, Russian Detective (www.Russian-Detective.com) received approximately of 274 submitted forms “Request for Prosecution Assistance” (form can be found here: http://russian-detective.com/ scams/scammed.htm)

Reports of victimization made through means other than the form listed above were not included in this summary.

The exact number of submitted requests is unknown due to 1) imperfect filing methods; 2) partial data loss that occurred in 2009

Here is a summary of the data collected from the submitted prosecution assistance requests:

Number of requests:

2006 – 9 requests

2007 – 85 requests

2008 – 74 requests

2009 – 79 requests

2010 (through April 10^th) – 28 requests

TOTAL:   274 requests

Monetary loss reported:

All sums reported are converted to US DOLLARS using Google currency calculator:

2006 - $38,704.43

2007 - $243,771.3

2008 - $230,590.2

2009 - $346,802

2010 (through April 10^th) – $87,188.92

TOTAL:    $947,056.9 

Range of monetary losses:

Monetary reported loss per scam (excluding money transfer fees):

2006 - Lowest: $480; Highest: $11,000; Mean: $4,300

2007 - Lowest: $200; Highest: $22,381; Mean: $3,018

2008 - Lowest: $270; Highest: $18,117; Mean: $3,464

2009 - Lowest: $100; Highest: $57,400; Mean: $4,529

2010 (through April 10^th) - Lowest: $320; Highest: $8,715; Mean: $3,885 

Country of origin of the scam:

2006 - Russia: 9 reports; Ukraine: 0 reports

2007 – Russia: 81 reports; Ukraine: 4 reports

2008 - Russia: 73 reports; Ukraine: 1 report

2009 - Russia: 76 reports; Ukraine: 2 reports

2010 (through April 10^th) - Russia: 26 reports; Ukraine: 2 reports