Scammers Posing as Security Agents Trick Architect Into Selling Property

Honored architect of Kazakhstan Yelena Shchedrina fell victim to a fraud scheme in which scammers posing as national security officers convinced her to sell two apartments and a car, and hand over the money, Orda.kz reports.

They did so under the pretense of a covert counterterrorism operation. Dissatisfied with the police response, Shchedrina staged a protest in front of the Prosecutor’s Office this past Saturday.

In January this year, individuals claiming to be officers from the National Security Committee (KNB) approached Shchedrina, alleging they were conducting an operation against scammers within government structures.

They told her that fraudsters had illegally gained access to her property and that she needed to cooperate — or risk criminal prosecution for “treason.”

'These pseudo-KNB agents convinced me that my apartment on Minina Street, in the Mechta residential complex, had already been fraudulently transferred to other individuals and listed for sale online,' Shchedrina said. 'To cancel the illegal transaction, I was told I had to sell the apartment myself and give them the money.'

She ended up selling the fully furnished apartment — along with a 50-square-meter parking spot — and handed part of the money to a bank account provided by the scammers, while the rest was given in cash to a courier.

Using similar tactics, the fraudsters persuaded her to sell her parents’ apartment on Jeltoqsan Street and her Toyota Prado. Shchedrina estimates her total losses at around 100 million tenge (approx. $220,000).

After realizing she’d been defrauded, she filed a complaint with the Bostandyq District Police. While a case was opened and her own assets frozen, no action was taken to freeze the bank accounts used by the scammers.

Shchedrina says she lost faith in the investigation after seeing online listings for her sold properties still active on the real estate site Krisha.kz.

The fraudsters remain at large as well.

'I was left with nothing—no money, no property, no home. I’m elderly, I have bad legs, and I need transportation. I have no family. I live alone. Everything I worked for to survive in old age, I lost in one week,' she said during her protest. 'I’m pleading for this case to be taken under control. Why are there no results? Why are the police inactive?'

Her protest outside the Prosecutor’s Office lasted just five minutes before staff came out and invited her inside.

According to Shchedrina, prosecutors told her the case is complex but under investigation, and that she must be patient.

A nearly identical case happened last year to writer and professor Kaken Kamzin, who was also persuaded by fraudsters to sell his property and hand over the proceeds after being warned it was under threat.

Original Author: Daniyel Utyupin