A report from the Centre of Data Resilience has tied Prizm and founder Aleksey Muratov to Donetsk separatism in Ukraine.
As per their web site, the Centre for Data Resilience is
an unbiased, non-profit social enterprise devoted to countering disinformation, exposing human rights abuses, and combating on-line behaviour dangerous to ladies and minorities.
Prizm’s ties to Donetsk separatist funding is explored in an April fifth report; “The Separatist’s Information to Circumventing Sanctions“.
Prizm is an MLM crypto Ponzi scheme based by Aleksey Muratov (aka Alexei Muratov, proper).
Muratov’s Ponzi profession goes again years. He was a distinguished chief in MMM World, the successor of one in all Russia’s largest Ponzi schemes.
CIR identifies Muratov, a former Russian politician, as at the moment having
a management function within the self-proclaimed authorities of the separatist Donetsk Individuals’s Republic in Jap Ukraine.
The DPR, also called the DNR, was shaped in 2014. It’s a Russian-backed separatist state in japanese Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities considers the DPR to be an occupying terrorist organisation.
The DPR’s connections to the MMM World Ponzi scheme run deep.
Present head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, is a former MMM World “Regional Consultant”.
In 2013, Muratov was arrested for MMM World Ponzi scamming in India. The circumstances Muratov escaped India are unclear.
CIR experiences that following his arrest, Muratov returned to Moscow and shaped the “First info Company” (Первое
информационное агентство, additionally branded as ‘1infa’).
1Infa produced media content material supporting the pro-Russian separatists within the battle that was then raging in Jap Ukraine.
This included common glowing protection of Muratov and Kramar’s former MMM colleague Denis Pushilin, who was working his manner up the ranks of the newly declared Donetsk Individuals’s Republic.
It additionally included interviews with Muratov and Kramar themselves, billed because the First Deputy Heads of the “Donetsk Republic” motion.
Emails belonging to key Putin aide Vladimir Surkov, which had been hacked and leaked in 2018, present that in 2014 Muratov was additionally making an attempt to curiosity the Kremlin in a proposal for a covert affect marketing campaign to assist increase the battle in Jap Ukraine additional west.
The plan drawn up by Muratov, which he codenamed “Operation Troy”, included a price range of $181,000 to fund protests, bribe Ukrainian intelligence brokers and civil servants, and purchase autos.
This plan doesn’t seem to have been put in movement. Muratov and Kramar’s information company 1Infa seems to have turn into inactive in 2016.
Whereas all that was happening, in 2016 MMM World additionally collapsed. Whereas MMM World was collapsing, E-Dinar, one other MLM crypto Ponzi scheme, launched.
CIR ties Muratov to E-Dinar and the infamous OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
In 2016 Muratov visited Thailand, and took part within the Bangkok enterprise convention for OneCoin, a now-infamous Ponzi scheme posing as a cryptocurrency.
The Ponzi facet of OneCoin collapsed in January 2017. E-Dinar collapsed a number of months later.
Muratov’s political shenanigans in Ukraine earned him a spot on the US’ sanctions record in June 2017.
As said by the US Treasury on the time;
Aleksey Muratov is an official consultant of the so-called “DNR” in Russia.
He was concerned in elevating funds in Russia for aid support for Donetsk and Luhansk, however it’s alleged that solely a small portion of the funds reached the meant recipients.
Muratov is being designated for being liable for or complicit in, or having engaged in, instantly or not directly, actions or insurance policies that threaten the peace, safety, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine; and performing or purporting to behave for or on behalf of, instantly or not directly, the DNR.
Following E-Dinar’s collapse, Muratov registered Prizm’s authentic web site area “prizm.membership”, in Could 2017. The Ponzi scheme launched shortly thereafter.
Prizm’s PZM was your typical Ponzi coin pump and dump:
The PZM flatline in mid 2021 coincides with Roy Membership taking off.
Roy Membership is one more MLM crypto Ponzi launched by Muratov. It surfaced in late 2018 however didn’t take off until mid 2021.
I wasn’t conscious of Muratov’s political ties however, as evidenced by the offered hyperlinks, have tracked the MLM facet of MMM World, Prizm and Roy Membership through the years.
Earlier than we get into what got here after Roy Membership, listed below are the place it and Prizm are presently at:
- Prizm is useless, Muratov collapsed what was left of it in mid 2021.
- Roy Membership web site site visitors has tanked since late 2021, it has doubtless additionally collapsed.
In December 2017 Prizm received some bullshit blockchain bro award in Sochi, Russia. Muratov didn’t attend the occasion. As an alternative he despatched Alexander Lavrentyev, Prizm’s “Director for Infrastructure and Improvement”.
Lavrentyev can be tied to the assassination of Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the DPR’s first Head of State and Denis Pushilin’s predecessor.
Lavrentyev shouldn’t be a cryptocurrency skilled. He’s a detailed affiliate of Denis Pushilin, the present chief of the DNR, and is probably greatest identified for being caught on movie in Turkey in June 2018 allegedly discussing the deliberate assassination of DNR’s then-leader Aleksandr
Zakharchenko.Zakharchenko was killed in an bomb assault on a café in August 2018. Every week later, Pushilin was put in because the performing head of the self-declared Donetsk Individuals’s Republic, a shift which additionally elevated his allies Muratov and Lavrentyev.
Though it wouldn’t flatline until mid 2020, Muratov and buddies rug pulled PZM in mid 2019.
This coincided with the launch of Ouroboros. As an alternative of fronting his new Ponzi scheme himself, doubtless because of US sanctions, Muratov put Lavrentyev in cost.
Ouroboros launched as extra of the identical. An MLM crypto Ponzi constructed round OURO, a Ponzi shitcoin. Over time nonetheless Ouroboros, by means of Blockchain Expertise LLC, morphed right into a Ponzi shitcoin manufacturing facility.
Since being integrated by Lavrentyev in Russia in February 2020, Blockchain Expertise LLC has gone on to launch Sputnik (SPT) and Karaganda (KRG) Ponzi tokens.
Ouroboros was built-in into Blockchain Expertise LLC. There are corresponding Android and iOS apps, by means of which the Ponzi token manufacturing facility is run.
In 2020 and 2021, Lavrentyev has personally carried out a collection of livestreams on the Blockchain Expertise Youtube channel to debate latest developments with Ouroboros and Blockchain Expertise’s different tasks.
In a variety of these movies he makes references to his prior function with Prizm, reaffirming the traces of continuity between Prizm and Ouroboros.
The principle goal of those livestreams appears to be making an attempt to reassure anxious traders that they may see a return on the cash they’ve put into Ouroboros and different Blockchain Expertise tasks, and inspiring them to assist convey extra funding into these tasks.
As at April 2022, withdrawals by means of Ouroboros’ inner alternate have been disabled.
Ouroboros’s advertising and marketing materials touts its safety as a key function of the cryptocurrency.
Nevertheless, a publish from an nameless Donetsk-based Telegram channel alleges that in actuality Muratov and Lavrentyev have entry to all person funds saved in Ouro Wallets, and are capable of alternate and withdraw the funds in Bitcoin.
Anybody vaguely aware of MLM crypto Ponzis ought to be capable to establish an apparent exit-scam.
In conclusion, CIR places forth that Muratov’s MLM Ponzi exploits are primarily a strategy to get round sanctions.
The hyperlinks to Muratov and the DNR … increase the query of sanctions violations.
Muratov is personally topic to OFAC sanctions within the US (which he has portrayed as an effort to cease him from spreading the phrase about Prizm and liberating the world from US monetary dominance), whereas monetary transactions with the DNR are topic to sanctions within the US and lots of different jurisdictions around the globe.
Regardless of this, Muratov has been capable of brazenly promote his monetary scheme, Prizm, throughout main US-based social media platforms for years after being sanctioned.
The regime within the self-declared DNR is enacting an unlawful occupation of the territory of Ukraine.
It’s perpetuating an armed battle that has claimed an estimated 14,000 lives to this point and it has been accused of committing human rights abuses.
It’s now serving because the pretext for an expanded, overt invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and will present a beachhead for a fullscale Russian assault on areas of japanese Ukraine at the moment exterior Russia’s management.
It might be very troublesome – and maybe in the end inconceivable – to find out primarily based on open sources precisely how a lot cash has moved to people within the DNR by means of the Prizm and Ouroboros cryptocurrency schemes.
A lot of this cash has flowed by means of fee platforms managed by the scheme operators, making it significantly troublesome to trace fiat alternate charges over time.
However there’s nonetheless room for additional evaluation of cryptocurrency transactions, which may shed some further gentle on the monetary flows from these tasks.
What is evident is that Prizm, Ouroboros and their associated tasks are producing sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for Alexey Muratov, Alexander Lavrentyev and their associates to speculate vital time and sources into maintaining these operations going over a few years.
It’s much less clear, nonetheless, the place the cash flowed subsequent – whether or not into the private accounts of Muratov and Lavrentyev or onwards to different DNR figures.
The findings of this investigation spotlight a number of points. One is the convenience with which US-sanctioned people like Muratov can promote monetary schemes and solicit cash throughout main social media platforms primarily based within the US.
Muratov has spoken brazenly about the usage of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions.
The profitable advertising and marketing of Prizm throughout Fb, Twitter, YouTube and different US-based social media platforms raises questions on whether or not these firms do or ought to have obligations over the promotion of economic schemes by sanctioned people or armed teams on their platforms.
The flexibility of Blockchain Expertise to get a number of apps into each the Apple and Android app shops, with none vital effort to obscure the involvement of Lavrentyev, is one other situation.
What degree of due diligence ought to be anticipated from Apple and Google in the case of their app shops?
Arguably essentially the most direct hurt from these schemes is to those that have entrusted their cash to it.
The construction of Prizm, and to a lesser extent Ouroboros, has sturdy echoes of the MMM Ponzi scheme.
Such schemes prey on the hopes, steal the financial savings, and harm the lives of individuals around the globe.
The usage of cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions is simply one other layer of fraud cryptocurrency usually exists to facilitate.
There are after all as a lot layers of fraud happening in cryptocurrency as there are in fiat. The distinction is with a fraction of the policing and regulation.
I don’t have any solutions for that. So far as the MLM trade goes, I sit up for the day cryptocurrency is both outlawed or the regulatory framework catches up.
I really feel that after NFTs, MLM crypto bros have run out of buzzwords to launch “please put money into my shitcoin so I can steal your cash” scams with. Though I’m positive there’s new rubbish to latch on to only across the nook.
Social media and its “i’M nOt A fInAnCiAl AdViSoR” scammers play an enormous function in promotion of MLM crypto Ponzis.
Importing a video of me robbing a financial institution to FaceBook or YouTube can be swiftly taken down. So why are promotion of MLM Ponzi schemes (and Ponzi schemes usually) prolific?
If it’s as a result of it’s far simpler to establish the crime in robbing a financial institution than it’s to tug aside a Ponzi scheme, then that must be addressed by means of legislature.
These are sadly adjustments that may evolve over a long time. With the pace scammers can deploy MLM crypto Ponzi schemes, I don’t know the place that leaves us within the interim.
Earlier this 12 months the DOJ named the Director of its new Nationwide Cryptocurrency Enforcement Group. We’ve but to see something come out of that however its very a lot early days.
Getting again to Aleksey Muratov and his MLM crypto Ponzi empire, again in his MMM World scamming days Muratov revealed a manifesto.
In it, Muratov claims he
realized the background of that battle [in Eastern Ukraine] was not a nationwide concept by the Ukrainian individuals, not a need to enter the European Union however a menace from worldwide companies to begin third world battle.
This could stop Russia from additional improvement and cease it from turning into a brand new superpower.
The Russian/Ukraine Boris CEO Ponzi has turn into considerably of a meme right here at BehindMLM. It’s exhausting to not snigger on the sloppy manufacturing and marvel who’re these scams being pitched at?
Right here’s who;
In a presentation to Prizm’s 2020 convention in St Petersburg, Jennifer Glukhova nee Menezes (previously an MMM promoter in India, now a Regional Director in Europe for CWT and ‘citizen’ of the DNR) defined how Prizm targets communities who largely would not have web entry:
“In India networking could be very totally different, as a result of solely 34% of individuals use web in India… There have been a whole lot of questions, like you understand how, how can we consider on this… the community, like the way it works is there is sort of a enormous chief, there are leaders, in order that they take accountability for the neighborhood.
So what occurs is, think about I’m from the village. I’m an individual who has information of web, so my individuals come to me and so they say, okay, I simply offer you my cash and also you do what it’s… That is precisely how networking works in India. There’s a whole lot of belief in individuals.”
Right here’s a fucking telephone. Watch this fucking video. Wow, what a shiny fucking workplace. Cash please. Thanks and goodbye.
Clearly not each Boris scheme is a proxy funding challenge for terrorism in Ukraine. And satirically, with maybe the exception of Blockchain Expertise LLC, Muratov has fronted his MLM crypto Ponzis.
However in a distinct segment stuffed with smoke and mirrors, it’s important to marvel the place all of this cash winds up. There are sanctions all over the place.
What higher strategy to get round them then by means of push-button MLM crypto Ponzis, that may be collapsed and rebooted as merely as restarting your own home laptop?
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in his newest handle seized on an obvious Russian menace to make use of chemical weapons towards the remaining defenders of Mariupol, as they put together for what he referred to as a “new stage of terror towards Ukraine.”
Mr. Zelensky’s feedback got here after Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the Kremlin-backed, separatist Donetsk Individuals’s Republic, mentioned on Russian tv that Russia ought to usher in “chemical forces” to make use of in Mariupol, the besieged southern metropolis.
He mentioned the remaining Ukrainian forces in Mariupol had been dug in at a metal plant and that Russia ought to encircle it and “smoke out the moles.”
Referring to these remarks, Mr. Zelensky mentioned in his newest video handle, “We take this as critically as attainable.”
That is the worth of greed. Take into consideration that the subsequent time you join below some schmuck on social media promoting you a rip-off.
Replace seventeenth Could 2022 – Each the Prizm and Roy Membership Ponzi schemes have collapsed.