The NCA's description of Russian Coms and its use
The NCA described Russian Coms both as a "group" and as the name of a vishing platform used heavily by fraudsters until it was shut down in 2024. According to the agency, the platform enabled callers to spoof pre-selected numbers that often impersonated financial institutions, telecommunications companies and law enforcement agencies. The stated aim of those calls was to steal funds and personal details from victims.
Charges brought, named suspects, and court timetable
Five people from London have been charged in connection with a multi-year investigation into Russian Coms. The charge list includes conspiracy to supply articles for use in connection with fraud, acquiring, transferring and converting criminal property, and "failure to comply with a notice relating to not providing phone passcodes." The suspects are identified as Ayoub Sehailia, 28; Zakkaria Sehailia, 30; Usman Din, 30; Denis Ozmus, 29; and Fadila Salem, 53. All five are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on August 14, 2026.
Scale of the operation: calls, victims and prior enforcement
Russian Coms was thought to have been the source of over 1.3 million scam calls made to roughly half a million UK phone numbers — and many more overseas — across a three-year period. The NCA places fraud at roughly two-fifths (41%) of crime in the UK, with over two-thirds (67%) of that thought to be cyber-enabled. The platform's apparent scale sits alongside recent law-enforcement actions: in January 2025, three men were sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court after admitting to running a site called www.OTP.Agency that helped fraudsters bypass multi-factor authentication. More recently, Operation Henhouse 5 produced the arrest of over 500 suspects, account-freezing orders against £9m ($12m) and seizures of cash and assets worth £18.1m ($24.3m).
How Russian Coms was built, marketed and sold
According to the NCA, the service began as a handset product and later evolved into a web-based application. It was marketed on social platforms including Snapchat, Instagram and Telegram as a cybercrime-as-a-service package. The advertised features included "unlimited minutes," "hold music," "encrypted phone calls," "instant handset wipe," international calls, voice-changing services and 24/7 support. The handset version reportedly included several VPN apps to hide IP addresses and a burner app that wiped the phone instantly when activated. Pricing listed for a six-month contract ranged from £1,200 to £1,400 — given in the source as £1200 ($1600) to £1400 ($1870), depending on collection and delivery.
What this means for victims, financial institutions, and law enforcement
- Victims and the general public: The scale — more than a million scam calls and hundreds of thousands of UK numbers targeted — underscores how spoofed display numbers can trick people into transferring funds or disclosing personal information. The NCA explicitly ties the spoofing to impersonations of trusted organizations, a detail that helps explain the observed financial losses.
- Financial institutions and telecommunications companies: These sectors were frequently impersonated by the spoofed numbers, putting account holders at risk and making customer education and transaction-monitoring priorities for institutions whose branding was used in the scams.
- Law enforcement and prosecutors: The investigation that produced five charges follows recent prosecutions and broad operations that included the sentencing linked to OTP.Agency and the large-scale Enforcement operation Henhouse 5. The court appearance scheduled for August 14, 2026, will be a focal point for linking platform operators to the broader set of criminal activity documented by freezes and seizures in recent enforcement actions.
Russian Coms’ shutdown in 2024 and the subsequent charges announced by the NCA on July 13 form part of a visible enforcement arc: targeted prosecutions such as the January 2025 OTP.Agency case, widescale arrests and asset actions under Operation Henhouse 5, and now charges against five named London residents. With a Westminster Magistrates' Court date set for August 14, 2026, investigators and victims will watch to see how those charges translate into accountability for a platform the NCA links to millions of scam calls.
