Police in Moscow said Wednesday that they had shut down an organized crime group that fraudulently sold its "psychic" services to the public in exchange for large sums of money.
The International Center of Psychic and Destiny Correction "deliberately" misled customers who contacted the group over fears that they or their relatives had been cursed, Moscow's rapid response police said in an online statement.
After an initial consultation, customers were advised to sign up for additional costly sessions with the so-called psychics.
Customers that refused were then scared into purchasing further sessions with the psychics under the pretense that they had been afflicted with life-threatening diseases.
The International Center of Psychic and Destiny Correction has been active in the Russian capital since October 2013, police said.
It was at that time that another suspected fraud ring was busted in Moscow, leading to a case being launched a month later against 11 people suspected of deceiving the public out of 200 million rubles ($6 million).
A police officer involved in the investigation was later detained for accepting a bribe in return for trying to shut the case down, RBC Daily cited the Investigative Committee as saying.
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