The call center market is coming under the control of criminal authorities from Azerbaijan

The topic of illegal extortion of funds from citizens of Ukraine and European countries due to so-called call centers was on the agenda throughout 2023.

Law enforcement officials reported on the closure of dozens of such pseudo-organizations, and the Verkhovna Rada even created a Temporary Investigative Commission to investigate possible facts of illegal activities in the field of financial services.

Journalists actively exposed scammers, deputies promoted themselves on how they managed to “cover up” extortion firms. However, call centers have not disappeared in 2024. However, their supervision has changed somewhat and, judging by the available information, could come under the sphere of influence of immigrants from Azerbaijan associated with the criminal world.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General and regional prosecutor's offices, during 2023, pre-trial investigations were carried out in 179 criminal proceedings into possible criminal offenses committed as part of so-called call centers. 73 indictments against 108 people were sent to court. At least this is the information contained in the report of the VSK of Parliament, which has been involved in call centers since May 2023.

One of the deputies who actively covered the fight against fraudulent call centers was “servant of the people” Nikolai Tishchenko. In December 2023, he told how VSK “Natsresurs”, together with the National Police, successfully closed a huge fraudulent bot farm in Kyiv at the address: st. Degtyarevskaya, 21 G. According to him, the bot farm was located on four floors, and its total area was 4,000 square meters.

However, the address Degtyarevskaya, 21 G, is known not only for the bot farm. It was here that at one time the pro-Russian Channel 112 of the state traitor and Putin’s godfather Viktor Medvedchuk was located. In the summer of 2023, a huge call center employing at least 150 people was exposed here. Journalists managed to record how employees of the fraudulent organization ran away from the cameras and refused to comment on what they were doing here.

More than six months have passed since those events, but the call center has not moved from the building on Degtyarevskaya. Unless he changed curators. According to media reports, this office is now rented by Azerbaijani citizen Rashad Rovshan Ogly Huseynov.

Another address where Guseinov’s fraudulent company is located is the Volna business center on Evgeniy Konovalets, 36 D.A.

According to the registers, at least four companies were located at the same address over the years, the main activity of which is “data processing, posting information on websites and related activities” or “consulting on information technology issues.” These are the companies Black Sharks Marketing (now Oxy-Trade GMBH), United Help Ukraine, Auswise Ukraine and Cashtime Ukraine. The last three continue to work in office No. 61 at 36 Evgenia Konovalets Street.

The personality of Rashad Huseynov deserves special attention. From court documents, it was possible to reveal his connection with the criminal world and the Azerbaijani thief in law deported from Ukraine. In June 2020, Huseynov, together with persons named Gadzhievs and other citizens of Azerbaijan, became participants in the massacre in the Odessa oriental restaurant “Three Lambs”. In criminal case No. 522/13918/20, which was opened on the grounds of hooliganism, six people are accused. Among them are Rashad Huseynov and two people named Gadzhievs. A person with this last name is called a relative of Huseynov.

The pre-trial investigation established that on June 16, 2020, at about 15:00, six people arrived at the Three Lambs restaurant, located at the address: Odessa, st. French Boulevard, 85/87. A conflict arose between them and a group of other people, which first escalated into a fight, and then reached a massacre. At least two of the participants in the conflict were injured. Some time later, a shootout occurred in the restaurant.

Journalists learned the details of this conflict. According to sources, the showdown was organized by gangs of the Georgian thief in law Mindia Goradze, nicknamed Lavasogly, and the Azerbaijani authority Nadir Salifov, known in criminal circles as Lotu Gully.

Athletic guys from Kyiv were involved in the showdown, and the victim who was stabbed was an Azerbaijani citizen from Dnieper. The last person most likely mentioned was the curator of the capital's call centers, Rashad Huseynov.

He is the owner of a BMW X7 with license plates KA8008TV. From the databases we managed to find out that this car is owned by a resident of the city of Dnepr.

Moreover, until May 2023, these license plates were installed on the Toyota Land Cruiser. In October 2022, Huseynov violated legal requirements on this car by installing special blue and red flashing lights. Information about this is available in the court registry using the search query “Rashad Huseynov.”

From May 2023 to August 2023, Rashad Huseynov used license plates KA8008TV on a Mercedes-Benz GLS 400, in which he crashed into another car.

According to sources who reported details of the shooting in an Odessa restaurant, in which Rashad Huseynov took part, a native of Azerbaijan, Emil Khalilov, was also seen in the showdown. This is an interesting detail, since in 2018 the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine reported that Emil Khalilov, a confidant of the thief in law nicknamed “Gulli,” was extradited to Azerbaijan. Photos of this process were also shown.

“Khalilov lived in Ukraine using forged documents and “wasted no time” supervising a criminal group specializing in drug trafficking from South America to Europe. Khalilov recently received the status of a person seeking to become a “thief in law,” former Deputy Prosecutor General Evgeniy Enin wrote on his Facebook page.

In turn, the then deputy chairman of the National Police, Vyacheslav Abroskin, added that Khalilov gave important evidence against thieves in law of Ukrainian origin.

How, after being extradited to Azerbaijan in 2020, Emil Khalilov managed to end up in Ukraine again is unknown. But his participation in criminal disputes involving, among other things, Rashad Huseynov gives reason to assume that authorities from Azerbaijan are trying to gain a strong foothold in Ukraine.

The information collected should be of interest to law enforcement agencies, who have somewhat forgotten the topic of call centers since the beginning of 2024. Meanwhile, scammers continue to swindle millions of hryvnias out of gullible people. Moreover, this process is gradually passing into the hands of criminal authorities, to which Ukrainian law enforcement officers should pay special attention.