June 5, 2014. Yekaterinburg police officers detained a young man who is suspected of a series of frauds, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry reports.

‘According to the police data, the alleged offender had been renting flats for one day and then sublet them for a longer period since the beginning of 2012. The man used fake IDs in the names of Gordy, Mittelman, and Khild. He found his victims on the Internet and invited them to have a look at the apartment. In order to sound more convincing, he would show the future tenants documents relating to the place. Not a single victim was able to identify the papers as fake. He would then take a month’s rent and vanished into thin air. He would sometimes let one and the same apartment to several people in one day,’ the police say.

During their inquest, the investigative team detected the suspect’s location and detained him. The man was taken to the police and underwent bodily search: officers found a fake passport in the name of Robert E. Mittelman. The document was withdrawn and added to the files of the criminal case. The detainee pleaded guilty and gave an accurate report of his actions.

The suspect is a 31-year-old Chelyabinsk Region native. He was actually prosecuted for the same real estate schemes and forgery in Moscow before. The court then sentenced the man to a two-year conditional sentence.

Criminal action relating to the case was instituted with charges based on Article 159 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (Fraud). The malefactor was arrested.