Fraudsters-"security guards" stole 24 thousand from a Lviv woman from Monobank: the police found the accounts where the money went, but the court refused to block them

dev.ua analyzed the ruling of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Lviv dated April 20, 2026 and tells how the scheme worked and why the investigation failed in court.

Scheme: «white» card to protect «black»

The incident occurred on March 18, 2026. The woman received a call from an unknown man who convincingly identified himself as a security officer at Monobank. The story was classic and frightening: some outsiders were trying to illegally increase her credit limit.

To «save» the money on the standard «black» bank card, the fraudster suggested that the victim urgently open a new one — a virtual «white» card. To do this, the woman only had to provide the codes from the SMS confirmations.

Once the victim handed over the codes, the attackers gained full access to her banking. In just 10 minutes, they:

1. They transferred UAH 9,658 from her «black» card to someone else’s account.

2. Her credit limit was increased to UAH 15,000.

3. They withdrew UAH 15,476 in credit funds to her Oschadbank card, and from there they instantly transferred UAH 14,549 to another drop account.

The total amount of losses amounted to 24,207 hryvnias.

How cyber police unraveled transactions

The operatives of the 10th Cyber ​​Police Department in Lviv region worked quite quickly. They unraveled the tangle of transfers to find the final points of withdrawal of funds.

The money was divided and scattered across different accounts. For example, the 14.4 thousand UAH stolen from Oschadbank first fell on one card, from there 12 thousand went to another, then another 3 thousand to a third. Then the fraudsters began to transfer the money into cash — they withdrew 1,000, 3,000, 500 hryvnias through ATMs or cash desks (the materials indicate the exact time of the withdrawal during March 18–21).

Investigators determined that the final transit cards belonged to customers of Universal Bank (Monobank) and applied to the court to seize these accounts in order to preserve the remaining funds as physical evidence and ensure future compensation to the victim.

Why did the court refuse the police?

It would seem that the scheme is clear, the accounts have been found. Why did the judge refuse to seize the accounts of the criminals (or their «mules»)? The answer lies in the quality of the preparation of the documents by the investigators themselves.

The investigating judge of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court rejected the police’s request for two purely legal reasons:

1. Improper processing of evidence. The investigator justified the arrest with a cyber police report. However, the judge noted that the information from the report «was not examined, investigated, and processed in accordance with the requirements of the CPC.» The police simply forgot to officially recognize this stolen money and accounts as «material evidence» by a special ruling in the criminal proceedings.

2. Impossibility of securing the claim. The investigator requested that the money be seized for future compensation for the damage. But the law says that for this to happen, a specific suspect must be identified, and the victim must file a civil lawsuit. The police came to court with a motion when there were no official suspects yet, and no civil lawsuit had been filed. Even the owners of the cards from which the funds were withdrawn had not yet been questioned and had no official status in the case. In addition, the investigator and prosecutor did not appear at all at the court hearing.