In the Angara Area police officers detained two residents of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, who replaced the man’s money with notes of the “joke bank”.

In June, an entrepreneur turned to the duty-unit of the MIA of Russia Inter-Municipal Administration “Irkutskoye”. He said that instead of his savings, he found play money in his bag.

During the interview, criminal investigators found out that he had found himself in an unusual situation several hours before in one of the markets in the Leninsky District of Irkutsk, where the man was buying goods in bulk. He saw a stranger picking up a bundle of money on the street. The “Lucky” guy turned to him and asked if he had lost a pack of notes, and then offered to share the find.

At the time of counting the money, another alarmed man appeared. He said that he had lost a large amount of money, and during the inspection of the find stated that he “knew his money” and demanded to show all the cash they had with them. Then the strangers began a quarrel, and the applicant withdrew.

Police officers suggested that it was during the “inspection” that the substitution had taken place. They interviewed promptly possible witnesses of the incident, studied the recordings from the security cameras and identified the car in which the suspects were moving around, and also found out that the car had left the regional center.

The promptly taken measures soon allowed the traffic police of the MIA of Russia Inter-District Division “Usolsky” to stop the wanted vehicle near the village of Belorechenskoye, 100 kilometers away from Irkutsk. In the car of the alleged swindlers, the detectives, who immediately arrived to the scene, found a large number of notes of the “joke bank”. The scam suspects turned to be two previously convicted resident of Krasnoyarsk aged 55 and 57.

Investigators of the Investigation Division No 8 of the Investigative Administration of the MIA of Russia Inter-Municipal Administration “Irkutskoye” initiated a criminal case on this fact under part 2 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Fraud”. At the request of the investigation, placement to custody was selected by court as the preventive measure against the suspects.

In the course of further work, investigators established the probable involvement of one of the defendants in a similar act that occurred in Irkutsk in March of this year. Then at a public transport stop, a man got 160 thousand rubles replaced with play money. Currently, the police are checking both Krasnoyarsk residents for involvement in other similar crimes in the territory of the Irkutsk Region and neighboring regions.