UK Charges Five in Connection With Russian Coms Call-Spoofing Empire

UK authorities have charged five people following a National Crime Agency investigation into Russian Coms, one of the most prolific caller-ID spoofing platforms used by scammers worldwide since 2020.

The five suspects—28-year-old Ayoub Sehailia, 30-year-old Zakkaria Sehailia, 30-year-old Usman Din, 29-year-old Denis Ozmus, and 53-year-old Fadila Salem—are all from London. They face charges including conspiracy to supply articles for use in connection with fraud, transferring or converting criminal property, and (in Zakkaria Sehailia's case) failing to comply with a notice to provide phone passcodes.

All five are scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on August 14.

The Russian Coms Platform

Established in 2020, Russian Coms began as a hardware handset before evolving into a web-based application. Both versions were marketed to criminals worldwide, allowing them to mask their identity by making calls that appeared to come from pre-selected numbers—often banks, telecom companies, or law enforcement agencies.

By the time of its shutdown, the platform had been used to make over 1.3 million calls to 500,000 unique phone numbers across more than 107 countries. The estimated victim count stands at around 170,000 people, with average losses of over £9,400 per victim.

Criminals paid £1,200 to £1,400 in cryptocurrency for six-month contracts to access the platform's flagship services. Promoted on Telegram, Snapchat, and Instagram, Russian Coms offered encrypted calls, a web phone, no-logs policy, international calling, voice-changing services, instant handset wipes, and 24/7 support.

How the Scams Worked

The most common tactic involved spoofing bank phone numbers to build trust with victims. Scammers would then convince targets to transfer their money to attacker-controlled accounts, claiming the accounts had been compromised by fraudulent activity.

The NCA noted that the platform generated "tens of millions in financial losses" since 2020, with the majority of victims concentrated in the UK, US, New Zealand, Norway, and France.

From Platform Takedown to Operator Charges

Russian Coms was first taken down in March 2024, following the arrest of three men in Newham, London, two of whom were believed to be the platform's administrators and developers. That operation was part of a broader law enforcement effort known as Operation Henhouse, which led to 290 arrests across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland with millions in assets seized.

The latest charges mark the next phase of the investigation—moving beyond the platform's operators to those who distributed devices and profited from selling the Russian Coms ecosystem to criminal end-users.

The case demonstrates the scale and sophistication of modern call-spoofing fraud, where a single platform can connect hundreds of criminals with hundreds of thousands of victims across multiple continents.

What This Means

Russian Coms sits at the intersection of several growing threats: AI voice changing, cloud-based VoIP infrastructure, and social engineering at scale. Its operators built a business that served the entire fraud ecosystem—from call centers to solo scammers—by providing everything needed to make a victim trust a call from "your bank."

For consumers, the takeaway is straightforward: if you get a call from your bank asking you to move money to a "safe" account, hang up and call back using the number on the back of your card. Spoofed caller IDs make it nearly impossible to trust what you see on your phone screen.

Source: BleepingComputer, NCA | July 13, 2026

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