Financial intelligence revealed a cash-out scheme using tourist cashback

Rosfinmonitoring warned banks about a new way to cash out money through Mir cards using travel cashback. Market participants do not yet understand how widespread the scheme is,

In RUSSIA, a new method of cashing out money with the help of tourist cashback has been revealed - travel agencies arrange fictitious trips for figureheads in order to receive a refund from the state. The essence of the scheme in the recommendations for banks was described by Rosfinmonitoring, two sources in credit institutions told RBC. The service sent a letter to market participants with signs of operations related to illegal receipt of cashback, and explanations of how they can be detected (RBC has the document).

“The Bank of Russia is aware that a similar scheme can be used in the tourist business market,” a representative of the Central Bank told RBC. The operator of the program, the National Payment Card System (NSPK), told RBC that its monitoring systems “enabled timely detection of violations of the rules of the promotion.”

To date, Rostourism has not received any complaints about the unfair behavior of market participants under the tourist cashback program, RBC was told in the press service of the agency responsible for paying reimbursements to travelers. “Together with our colleagues [from NSPK], we are working out all possible risks, constantly improving the technological safety of the program,” Rostourism said, adding that the agency will take into account the recommendations of Rosfinmonitoring and will additionally work out security protocols with NSPK.

RBC sent a request to Rosfinmonitoring.

What is the essence of the scheme

As noted in the letter from Rosfinmonitoring, participants in the new illegal scheme can be travel companies and individuals - clients or employees of these companies, as well as those who are associated with their management or owners. The goal is to get a tourist cashback, which is allocated by Rostourism from the budget.

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How much money can be returned for travel in Russia

The travel cashback program has been operating in Russia since August 2020, it was launched to support the Russian tourism industry amid the covid-19 pandemic. It involves the transfer of monetary rewards to Mir cards when paying for tourist trips around the country and meeting certain conditions. The traveler, in particular, must buy a ticket from an operator participating in the program, payment must be made within a certain period and only with the Mir card after registering in the loyalty program on the privetmir.ru website. After that, the client can count on the return of part of the money spent to his bank account. The travel cashback program is regularly extended and updated. At the last stage, which was valid until April 30, the maximum amount of compensation was 20%, but not more than 20 thousand rubles. Until August 31, Mir cardholders can also receive a 50% cashback for paying shifts in children's camps (also no more than 20,000 rubles).

Rosfinmonitoring identifies four stages of the scheme, which allows you to cash out tourist cashback.

Individuals open Mir cards in the interests of the travel agency - they must receive money to further pay for the tour for the sake of cashback. The company credits them under the guise of a refund for a previously canceled tour (for example, due to a trip disruption due to the CORONAVIRUS pandemic). The client's account receives 180-400 thousand rubles, the letter says. Then the client buys tours in Russia within one or two days - as a rule, he makes from one to four transactions for up to 100 thousand rubles. each (the maximum amount of tourist cashback is just 20% of the transaction amount, but not more than 20 thousand rubles). Payment is made through terminals located in the offices of travel agencies, Rosfinmonitoring indicates. The next stage of the scheme, which takes place regardless of its participants and the bank, is the transfer of tourist cashback to the account of an individual. Compensation is paid by NSPK at the expense of budget money allocated by Rostourism. After that, the bank client withdraws the funds received from the card in cash or transfers them to the accounts of other individuals.

What do banks and tour operators know about this scheme?

RBC sources in two large banks, who are aware of the Rosfinmonitoring letter, said that they had not previously observed attempts to cash out tourist cashback and could not assess its scale. The interlocutor of RBC in one of them noted that the very fact of accruing cashback is not controlled by the credit institution in any way, it depends on the NSPK and the bank does not yet know how to deal with the new scheme.

VTB reported an increase in the activity of fraudsters by 30% since the beginning of April Society

MTS-Bank did not record such cases, but is closely monitoring the situation, its representative said. “Opening a card and paying for travel services with it will not raise doubts with the bank if such operations are typical for the client,” he added.

“The spread of this scheme is associated with an increase in the popularity of the tourist cashback service,” says Lyudmila Sokolova, HEAD of the financial monitoring department at Zenit Bank. According to her, the bank has received recommendations from Rosfinmonitoring and will take action if signs of transactions mentioned in the letter are revealed.

The rest of the top 20 major banks did not respond to RBC's request.

The ANEX Tour tour operator participated in all tourist cashback programs, but does not know about the specific cashback scheme, its representative says: “We are not able to observe such a practice, since this procedure goes through banking operations and booking tours by tourists directly at the travel agency.” Tour operators Intourist, Tez Tour, Fun & Sun, Biblio Globus, Pac Group did not respond to RBC's request at the time of publication of the material.

Can banks fight this scheme

Russian banks can now refuse to conduct client transactions if there are doubts about its legality and there are signs of dubiousness. In a new letter to banks, financial intelligence proposes to prevent the cashback of tourist cashback at the first stage of the scheme.

As follows from the document, credit organizations must verify and confirm that the travel agency reasonably transferred money to an individual for a canceled trip. A sign that the client may be a participant in a dubious scheme will be the fact that he did not previously pay for a trip abroad, did not make transactions in the destination region of the new tour (with cashback) or could not provide documents confirming the trip to the bank - checks , tickets or vouchers. In addition, questions from the bank should arise if the travel agency did not make any calculations to organize the trip.

The Central Bank invited banks to return money stolen by fraudsters in 30 days

The scheme looks incomprehensible, especially in terms of what banks should control, says Alexander Naumov, deputy head of the National Financial Market Council (NSFR): “They don’t see the whole scheme, and asking customers questions about refunds or paying for tour packages is formally legal operations — the bank can not". If the travel agency is served by one bank, and the client who bought the ticket is served by another, then the bank also cannot find out whether the travel agency reasonably returned the money to him, the expert continues: “He cannot demand any documents from the company that he has not served."

Naumov also emphasizes that getting a travel cashback is not so easy, since the client must meet many conditions, and the number of travel agencies participating in the program is limited. “There are a lot of simpler cash out schemes,” he sums up.

The Bank of Russia singles out the tourism sector as an industry where high-risk operations are carried out for the purpose of laundering or withdrawing money. In 2021, 18% of all such questionable transactions were carried out by travel and trade companies, as well as payment agents. The share of travel agencies is not separately disclosed in the statistics, as well as the volume of possible cashing and laundering through such companies.

It is difficult to say how closely banks will be able to track the operations of travel agencies to return money for canceled trips, says Galina Gamburg, head of the property relations practice at Amulex.ru. According to the lawyer, banks can request supporting documents from travel agencies, but this "can greatly complicate the activities of large companies." “Especially those who have a large volume of clients and a lot of the same type of operations. And as a result, clients who will wait a long time for a return will suffer, ”concludes the lawyer.

The representative of the Central Bank told RBC that the scheme with the illegal receipt of tourist cashback should be regarded not as a “classic cashing out”, but as a fraud with the aim of stealing budget money.

“In our opinion, the solution to this problem is seen in the plane of changing the procedure for the return of funds (tourist cashback) - to issue it only after confirming the use of the service by the tourist. For example, after checking into a hotel,” he said.