Penza, 24 February 2016. PenzaNews. A Penza citizen, 33, fell victim to a fraud in an attempt to buy a BMW car via an online ad.

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“He found an ad on Avito.ru advertising a car made in 2005 sold for 312,000 rubles, and called the contact phone number. An unidentified person took the call, and explained that the car is currently located in Nizhny Novgorod and he would need an advance payment for the purchase. To confirm his intentions are true, the unknown person sent a photocopy of a Nizhny Novgorod region citizen’s passport to the victim’s e-mail,” the press service of the Penza region Ministry of the Interior department informed PenzaNews agency.

Following the instructions of the unidentified person, the man transferred 300,000 rubles to the former’s bank card account in two installments, they added.

“Following that, the ad poster stopped taking his calls. When the citizen realized he fell for a fraud, he came to the police,” the department explained.

The fraud case is currently under investigation, and the police are identifying the culprits involved in the crime, the press service added.