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

Issued: May 6, 2010 

From May 2006 until May 6, 2010, Russian Detective (www.Russian-Detective.com) received approximately of 283 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 requests for prosecution assistance:

Number of requests:

2006 – 9 requests

2007 – 85 requests

2008 – 74 requests

2009 – 79 requests

2010 (through May 6^th) – 36 requests

TOTAL:   283 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 May 6th) – $126,610

TOTAL:    $990,574 

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 May 6^th) - Lowest: $320; Highest: $9,480; Mean: $3,517 

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: 34 reports; Ukraine: 2 reports 

Country of residence of the complainant:

This data refers to the self-reported country of residence of the victims from filled out the submitted requests for prosecution assistance. Those victims who failed to indicate their country of residence were marked as "Undetermined." Please note that the smaller number of of requests from English-speaking countries may be influenced by the fact that victims from non-English speaking countries are be less likely to 1) find and navigate RD web site; 2) understand or fill out a prosecution assistance request form.

2006

2007

2008

2009