Income up to 300%: five types of financial pyramids that continue to prosper in Russia

A little more than a year ago, the founder of the main financial pyramid of the 1990s, Sergei Mavrodi, but the schemes that glorified him are still popular. In the first quarter of 2019, the Central Bank discovered a 61 new financial pyramid in Russia. After the smallest passes to 30 million rubles a year, through all the Russian -speaking pyramids combined - tens of billions. The Bell talks about the five most effective ways to deprive gullible investors.

Personal brand

“We will earn such money together without going to a damned job,” Blogger Evgeny Andreev promises , waving a fan of five thousandth bills for the song ABBA “Money Money Money”. “I will lead you by the hand to success,” he says and calls for subscribing to his YouTube channel, chats in Skype and Telegram. In another video , Andreev with the same appeal cuts with a friend on a boat on the water surface of a reservoir. Dozens of forums and blogs are devoted to Evgeny Andreev, where users in the ironic and not very form call it “highly profitable projects” - “scam”, “pyramid” and warn that it is dangerous to cooperate with it. The Bell correspondent, introducing himself as a potential client, contacted Andreev through his account in Telegram. The entrepreneur proposed to participate in a new project with quick results called Syntera: “Payments of daily, daily percentage - every day, the minimum entrance is $ 100, then the monthly percentage will be 16%, with a contribution of $ 2 thousand - 17%, from $ 10 thousand - 18%. You will receive another 8%from me as a partner. ”

When asked what partnership is, Andreev replied: you need to transfer him the amount in rubles on bank details, he will add 8%to it, transfer everything to bitcoins and send the resulting amount through the personal account on the Syntera website. When asked why he would like this, Andreev explained: “In order not to bother with the exchangers myself, I use rubles, send me rubles, and I transfer you to the coin.” When the correspondent of The Bell asked the legality of Eugene and sent links to reviews about his projects, Andreev said: “Continue to go further to the cursed work and work for money, and I make the money to work for me!” How many people participate in Andreev’s projects, he did not answer. But he has more than 30 thousand subscribers in social networks, and his videos have more than 1.2 million views, under them - hundreds of comments like “thank you for helping people” and “shamefully, I’ll definitely try” (spelling is saved).

In addition to Syntera, Andreev offers to invest in two technological projects: the production of houses that receive energy from the wind “Energy 2020” and the Duyunov motor-wheel. He calls these investments “venture investments”, warning that there will be no quick income here, but in a couple of years the shares will increase in price almost 100 times. It is interesting that real patents for inventions are designed for projects, and an enthusiastic plot on the Russia 24 television channel even came out about “Energy 2020”. Andreev is an example of a personal brand, but there are few people like him. Among the 61 financial pyramid for the 1st quarter of 2019, the Central Bank revealed only two individuals. The rest are mimified by different types of business.

₽30 million

It passes through a small financial pyramid per year, and tens of billion rubles can pass through everything per year.

From 168 pyramids

created in 2018, 72 were registered as an LLC, 63 worked under the sign of credit and consumer cooperatives, the rest in other forms

5–7%

Revenues of financial pyramids go to the organization of their work and up to 50% for advertising and marketing

352

Illegal Forex dealer revealed the Bank of Russia in 2017-2018 and 56 for the 1st quarter of 2019. Most pyramids in the Central Federal District

₽2.4 billion

Damage from financial pyramids in 2018

₽800 million

Damage from financial pyramids in 2017

Pyramid in leasing

62% per annum - such attractive conditions were offered to their customers by the "Leasing Company" Capital ". She appeared in the fall of 2017 and worked through the Capital LLC - this legal entity was indicated on the company's website, which is now liquidated and available only in Web Archiv. The company opened an office in Sukharevsky Lane in Moscow and immediately began an advertising campaign, and not only on the Internet, but also in the media, regularly placing advertising banners in the newspaper "Evening Moscow".

The “capital” proposed to invest allegedly in leasing contracts at high interest rates. For example, with a deposit of 400 thousand rubles, the company promised an income of 75 thousand in five months, that is, 45% per annum. From the classic Pyramid "Capital" was only different: customers were offered to invest in business cars.

Now the company's office is closed, the site does not work, but the contextual advertising of its services is still on the Internet. There are no assessments of the damage that the company has inflamed, but deceived investors are already turning to journalists. Judging by the plots of federal television, mostly these are elderly people.

The founder and general director of LLC “Capital” - Alexei Kondratov with the TIN of the Ryazan region. According to the Sodovoy Kondratov specified during the registration, the man who introduced himself as Alexander. He said that he lives in Krasnodar and has nothing to do with the “capital”, but deceived investors and law enforcement officers have already been associated with him. Kondratov is also headed by Fortuna LLC with a specialization in “Auxiliary Services Business” - in 2015-2017, the company earned more than 100 million rubles. And since the spring of 2019, he is a co-owner of the Nord Trade and Trans-Service 2018 companies with a specialization in freight transport.

The website of the “capital” indicated that “the main investor of the company is one of the largest Western investment corporations ISAMPLIA HOLDING LTD”. But, according to the Opencorporates database, a company with this name exists only in Cyprus. The company, according to the Cyprus register of legal entities, was created at the same time, when the Russian legal entity “Capital”, in the fall of 2017. Under the same address and with the same director, more than 100 Cyprus legal entities were registered.

The work of the “capital” work almost one to one coincided with the company “Intel-Finance”-the director of the Central Bank Department to counteract unscrupulous practices Valery Lyakh spoke about it. Intel-Finance also proposed investing, but not in leasing, but in pharmaceuticals.

The company also posted advertising in the newspaper Vechernyaya Moscow, while the presentation of information in advertising modules was similar: 59% per annum and an increase in profitability every month.

It is not difficult to expose the “Intel-Finance”: it’s enough to upload a photo of her top managers from the site to search for Google pictures. Allegedly, the general director of the company Veronika Pavlova, according to the results of such an audit, turned out to be Irina’s long -registered on one of the dating sites, and her photos were taken from there.

On their sites, such companies indicate that they accept money only from legal entities, but the office willingly take cash from individuals who wanted to become depositors. Because of this, it is always very difficult to assess the real scale of the activities of each of these pyramids.

Hype pyramids

Another pyramid format is a masking for forex dealers. The legislation regulating this activity entered into force only in October 2015. Prior to this, the company worked on licenses of regulators of foreign states, and in fact no one checked whether the forex dealer is a pyramid or a bona fide player. In October 2016, the Association of Forex dealers, which included Alfa-Forma, VTB-FOREX, Finam-FOREX and PSB-FOREX,-daughters of financial corporations and banks, was included in the register of self-regulatory organizations. The legal market is still represented only by them, from five more Forex dealers the Central Bank took away the licenses at the end of last year. The regulator explained its decision by the fact that these companies attracted customers with the help of aggressive advertising, issued most of the people on foreign forex dealers, and the money was mainly withdrawn to offshores. In addition, they - and this is the “biggest sin in the market” - did not follow the instructions of the Central Bank, and significantly indicated the Lyakh then.

In Russia, in order to get a forex dealer license, now you need 100 million rubles of your own money, nominal bank accounts and staff of 8 people, says the head of the Forex-Dilers Association Evgeny Masharov. Few may meet these requirements. For example, in 2015, the regulation of a forex market appeared in Belarus, but there are much more companies in their registry, since the legislation is more flexible there. “Hype projects in the Forex market live an average of 6–9 months, but there are not so many of them. Fraudsters from financial pyramids, as a rule, work with the “cold base”, and with the offer to open an investment account at 100% per annum is difficult to lure into the pyramid. The interlocutor may not even understand what he is offered, ”he explains.

Financial pyramids in Russia

Only 685 pyramids

Source: Central Bank

Financial pyramids found in the first quarter of 2019

Total: 61 pyramids

Source: Central Bank

Financial pyramids disguised as Forex work in the High Yield Investment Program (HYIP) format, the so-called hype sites that promise high profitability. The client makes money, the amount is reflected in his personal account on the site. Then he chooses a manager for this amount, who allegedly plays with this money in the Forex market. The client sees an increase in the invested amount and at the first stage can withdraw money, after which he is offered to invest even more.

The first Russian-language forex pyramids appeared and developed in Ukraine-from there the largest pyramid of MMCIS and its main competitor Forex Trend. According to the estimates of law enforcement agencies in Russia and Ukraine, more than 10 billion rubles passed through both pyramids. Both appeared back in 2008, but began to block their work only a few years ago (RBC magazine told about this). Despite this, the pyramids periodically resume work. For example, in March 2019, the press center of the Security Service of Ukraine announced the discovery of the next Forex Trend office.

56

Illegal Forex dealers discovered the Central Bank for the I quarter of 2019, of which 36 foreign legal entities, 17 sites, 2 legal entities in the form of an LLC and one individual entrepreneur

352

Illegal Forex dealer was discovered in 2017 and 2018, materials on them were sent to the prosecutor's office to block sites through the court or divided through domain registrars

Source: Central Bank

Creative approach

Among the new forms of masking projects similar to financial pyramids are investments in gold. For example, the Emgoldex exchange, which is already devoted to several groups of deceived investors in social networks, offers to invest in gold ingots, based on a price of 33 euros per 1 grams and 1028 euros per 1 kg. At the same time, the client does not receive gold, it remains in a certain warehouse, but after a couple of months, the depositor promises to give gold by 3.5 thousand euros. In groups of Emgoldex customers, confident that they were deceived by the financial pyramid, more than 500 people consist.

Another project called Give1Get4 (aka G1G4) seems to have decided to self -destruct: the company's website stopped working, groups of deceived investors in social networks grow. The conditions of this project are also original: customers were invited to invest in “matrices”. $ 39.5 for four months or $ 79 per year was taken from depositors, and in return they were given a place in the “financial matrix” on the site.

In matrices of 7 places: 1st line-1 person, 2nd line-2 people, 3rd line-4 people, etc. Having invested the money, a person falls on the third line, and his contribution goes to the one who is on the 1st line. What happens next, it is not clear from the description of the pyramid, but the description says that the program has five varieties of matrices, each client should bring more than four people to it, and then his annual yield can be up to 300%. Approximately the same principle, the L&S Club site operates, the first advertisement of which appeared back in 2012-2013. Since then, dozens of groups and publications have appeared on the Internet with an indication that this project is a financial pyramid. Nevertheless, the company's website is still working and offers customers to earn money on “network marketing”, attracting new investors.

But the most resourceful entrepreneurs went even further: they began to create pyramids, not hiding that they were pyramids. The depositors are invited to make money, attract acquaintances and independently determine when they “jump out” so as not to burn out.

To help, instructions are given to determine the life of the pyramid: start, peak of growth or proximity of bankruptcy. Among the advice to customers: to check whether they are promptly responsible for the contacts indicated on the website of a company, and also to find out the year of creation and proceed from the fact that any pyramid lives a maximum of a year and a half.

There are not so many examples when the organizers of the financial pyramid manage to detain. In August 2018, four participants in the Invest-Garant pyramid were arrested in the Penza region, whose victims were at least 3 thousand people, and the total damage exceeded 1 billion rubles. The organizers of the pyramid proposed investing in a certain real estate and promised a return at the level of 60% per year, but the company did not conduct any activities and issued money exclusively from new contributions. Invest-Garant LLC, through which the pyramid worked, was established by Natalya Simakina.

The company actively worked for at least five years, it follows from its financial statements in the Spark. The annual revenue and net profit were small-up to 12.5 million rubles a year, but the amount of assets constantly grew: from 162 million rubles in 2012 to 2.2 billion in 2017. Law enforcement officers learned about the signs of a financial pyramid in the work of the company from the Penza branch of the Central Bank, after which they conducted seven searches in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Penza, finding confirmation of the illegal work of the company.

On the VKontakte social network there is a group of deceived invest-guarantor depositors, where lively discussions are still being conducted. Judging by the content of the group, most depositors still have not received money back and are at the stage of submitting an application for entry into the register of deceived creditors. Another example is the credit and consumer cooperative "Rost".

Since the fall of 2018, a criminal case has been considered in Kazan against seven associated accused. According to the case file, the pyramid has been working since 2013. It was created previously by Andrei Makarov, twice convicted of fraud, buying a ready -made legal entity with an opened insurance license and issuing it for his sister Natalia Makarova. The company had 40 branches in 23 regions of Russia and offered to invest from 10 thousand rubles in its allegedly belonging network of pawnshops, real estate and agricultural vehicles. In return, depositors were promised 10-18% per month. The court recognized the court more than 3.5 thousand people who issued “growth” in the amount of more than 1.4 billion rubles. The largest of the famous pyramids of recent years is Cashbury . The Central Bank estimates the damage from its activities in the amount of up to 3 billion rubles. The Central Bank announced that Cashbury is a financial pyramid at the end of September 2018. The organizer of the pyramid Arthur Vardanyan is not arrested. In a video message published on YouTube after the statement of the regulator, he promised to create new projects and pay the promised interest to the depositors, despite the stop of the work of Cashbury.

The robot of the Central Bank

Formats under which financial pyramids are disguised today, dozens: insurance, leasing companies, forex dealers that control investment in cryptocurrencies and promotions of mining companies, microfinance organizations (MFIs), etc. In the regions, the format of clubs spread to the fund of which a person should make money, and in return fraudsters promise, for example, to give an apartment in the complex under construction, says Valery Lyakh, director of the Central Bank Department of the Central Bank, the director of the Central Bank Department.

How the Central Bank fights financial pyramids

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In 2017, a separate unit was created at the Bank of Russia - the Department of Combating unscrupulous practices, which is engaged in the fight against illegal immigrants. Since last year, we began to work in this direction on the basis of the regional model - in all the main departments in the regions, special departments were created to combat illegal immigrants, in Krasnodar - a hub. This year, another hub was opened in Khabarovsk, aimed at struggle with the pyramids.

"

We work with Big Data: by a set of words and phrases, a special script finds pages in social networks and websites of companies with signs of pyramids. If they are not in the registers of legal organization, the script offers employees to verify the data more attentively. Then we analyze the movement of money between the organizers and participants in the financial pyramid and try to calculate the beneficiary, form materials and transfer it to law enforcement officers. We also cooperate with the International Organization of Securities Commissions (iOSCO) to stop Russian -speaking pyramids registered abroad.

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Once we checked movements on 50 cards in different regions and found that the terminal of withdrawal of money from all of them is in one place. The owner of the pyramid withdrew money in it. Then it was already the work of law enforcement officers.

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Recently, scammers have been trying to open offices. There, a manager for a cup of coffee removes doubts of potential customers.

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According to the law, only the bank can accept the contribution, and the MFI has the right to accept money exclusively from legal entities. For some, investing in a financial pyramid is a gambling: a person hopes that he can “jump out” with money.

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Financial pyramids try to accept only cash. Because of this, evaluating their revenue is always quite difficult. Через маленькую пирамиду проходит в среднем 30 млн рублей в год, через все пирамиды, по экспертным оценкам, за год — вплоть до десятков миллиардов. Около 5–7% этих денег попадает в реальный сектор экономики: тратится на аренду, оборудование, еще до 50% может уходить на рекламу.

"

Мошенники знают, что часто люди в возрасте и с накоплениями мигрируют на юг, поэтому часто финансовые пирамиды создаются там. Если формат пирамиды кажется создателям успешным, он распространяется и на север страны. По большому счету создателю финансовой пирамиды неважно, кого «обрабатывать», лишь бы у человека были деньги.

"

Читать обращения обманутых людей очень тяжело. Например, письмо от матери-одиночки, которая осталась без квартиры, с кредитами, еще и совершенно одна вместе со своими проблемами, потому что потеряла доверие вовлеченных ею по незнанию в пирамиду друзей и родных. Даже игра в наперстки честнее, чем финансовые пирамиды, — с наперсточником хотя бы ясно, кому отдаешь деньги.

Поскольку сегодня большинство пирамид работают через интернет, то их деятельность фактически не прекращается, пока действуют их сайты. Просто «закрыть» пирамиду ЦБ не может — такая деятельность, как у «Кэшбери» и всех остальных, не лицензируется, и отзывать у них нечего. Но в Госдуму уже направлен законопроект, который в каком-то смысле приравняет ЦБ к Роскомнадзору — он позволит регулятору требовать блокировки сайтов финансовых пирамид до суда. Сейчас для блокировки требуется запрос в прокуратуру, положительное решение по суду, которое направляется в Роскомнадзор, но этот процесс занимает до полугода.

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