Payments come from the €8.5 million Yermolayev paid the state under a plea bargain in April, but authorities have not reached everyone and some have not replied.

Harju County Court convicted Yermolayev, a Ukrainian national, in the spring of creating and leading a criminal organisation that ran scam-call offices across Ukraine from 2017. Victims were offered non-existent investments by phone; between 2019 and 2022 more than €100 million was taken worldwide, an estimated €5.4 million of it from people in Estonia.

State Prosecutor Jürgen Hüva said the aim is to refund everyone the prosecution service can confirm suffered loss. "Work with the remaining possible victims continues. The final number of victims and the amount to be paid out is therefore still being established," he said.

Police have established about 100 people with the data needed to make payments. "Once the amount of loss caused to a person has been established, the aim is to repay them the full amount identified," Hüva said. Anything left goes to state revenue.

Police emailed all known potential victims before November. Many have not replied, which Hüva said may be down to outdated contact details or suspicion that the letter itself is a scam — a fear he called "entirely understandable, as fraudsters may try to imitate police approaches."

"Police letters were sent officially from an @politsei.ee address and in Estonian," he said, meaning any communication from another address claiming to concern compensation for Yermolayev's activities is itself a potential scam.

Yermolayev's five-year sentence saw four months and 26 days served, the rest suspended under five-year probation, plus expulsion and a 10-year Schengen entry ban. Prosecutors chose the deal over a trial because his assets were dispersed offshore, and Hüva said that otherwise "most likely no one would ever have seen that money."

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