Unknown Russian Finiko Ponzi scheme operators reportedly withdrawn large amounts of cryptocurrency from a wallet. The wallet’s unknown operators have transferred coins worth $48 million this month. Digital currency was divided into smaller amounts, and sent to various addresses.
750 BTC Removed From Crypto Pyramid Finiko Wallet
Forklog reports that 750 BTC total, which is approximately $48 Million at the time, was withdrawn from Finiko’s wallet. Andrey Alistarov, Youtube blogger, broke the story about the transaction. He revealed that the transactions were made in three separate 250 BTC transactions each.
Initial transfer of the funds was to a single address. It was then sent to another Huobi wallet, according to Crystal Blockchain data. The publication details reveal that the crypto funds were divided and then transferred to smaller amounts.
Alistarov alleged that these transactions had been ordered by three of Finiko’s high-ranking members who are still at large. Zygmunt Zygmuntovich, Marat Sabirov, and Edward Sabirov, close associates of the pyramid’s founder Kirill Doronin, managed to leave the Russian Federation as the crypto investment scheme collapsed this summer, avoiding detention. A high court of Tatarstan approved their international arrest warrants in September.
Russian blogger commented on the fact that Finiko founders had transferred money to multiple accounts for their own purposes. “Why they haven’t been locked up until now is unclear, because they have long been marked as a scam. One thing is clear – money is being cashed out at the moment,” Andrey Alistarov added.
Authorities in Russia are currently working to establish all the facts in the case with Finiko, a phantom entity that lured hundreds of thousands of investors by advertising itself as an “automatic profit generation system” and promising extraordinarily high returns. Because of the scale of fraud involved, the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs was able to take over the investigation.
In early October, Kirill Doronin, an Instagram influencer associated with other Ponzi schemes in the past, two of Finiko’s vice presidents, Ilgiz Shakirov and Dina Gabdullina, as well as Lilia Nurieva, who rose to the rank of a so-called “10th Star,” were transferred to the capital Moscow.
Finiko is arguably Russia’s largest financial pyramid scheme since the notorious MMM in the 1990s. Although the official losses have exceeded 1 billion rubles, which is close to $14 millions, estimates by independent sources suggest that they could be closer to $4 billion.
Chainalysis reports that between August 2021 and December 2019, the Ponzi scheme was worth more than $1.5 Billion in bitcoin. It received 800,000 deposits separately from investors. Many victims include citizens from Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet countries as well several EU member states and the United States.
Is it possible that Finiko members who are fugitive may have been behind the transfer of 750 BTC to a crypto pyramid wallet? Leave a comment below.
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