The friendly broker who helped you open a crypto account was working from a call centre in Kyiv

135 people in Germany, more than 4.3 million euros. Those are the numbers Ukraine's National Police put on a fraud ring it says ran investment scam call centres out of Ukraine, in a joint operation with German investigators called "Trade". Four people are in custody, including the alleged organiser, and a co-organiser is under house arrest. Under Ukrainian law they face up to 12 years in prison.

The script will sound familiar. A caller, or a contact on a messaging app, introduces themselves as a broker or financial adviser and talks you into crypto, shares and other investments on a trading platform that looks professional and is entirely fake. Then comes the clever part. According to the police, the "advisers" helped victims open accounts on genuine cryptocurrency exchanges and buy coins there, which makes everything feel legitimate. The coins were then sent on to wallets the gang controlled. In some cases the scammers got as far as the victims' online banking.

Investigators carried out 39 searches in August across Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia and Ivano-Frankivsk, and another 17 around Kyiv in September, seizing over 90,000 dollars, nearly 600,000 hryvnias, hardware crypto wallets, phones and SIM cards. Ukraine has been closing these operations for months, but the calls keep coming from somewhere.

The useful rule is simple. A real adviser doesn't cold-call you, doesn't need you to move money to a wallet they name, and never needs your banking login. If someone has walked you through setting up accounts or apps on your PC, Tendvane's Privacy & accounts check and Safety check for unwanted software are a sensible first look at what they may have left behind.