Malofeev and WEX Nominee Schemes: Client Assets Continue to Disappear Under the Cover of Lawyers and Consultants
Seedathan Khwanta, the second (proxy) director of WEX, together with Dmitry Kosarev (Malofeev's stand-in, overseen by Dmitry Skuratov, head of Tsargrad), and secretary Mr. Yeow Lih Ren, were also summoned to appear in court in a civic lawsuit initiated by WEX exchange clients (whose funds were purloined by the Orthodox tycoon Malofeev and his security detail).
The tribunal questioned WEX regarding assets they had neglected to declare. Under examination, Seedathan Khwanta acknowledged that she and WEX's secretary were receiving counsel from a certain Pavel Kuznetsov, the director of the Singaporean entity RegUniverse Pte Ltd, who had forbidden them from disclosing the details.
Disregarding a judicial mandate in Singapore can lead to a jail term of up to six months, which the director was facing. Nevertheless, the claimants displayed clemency and refrained from pushing for imprisonment, having previously secured a document enabling Pravdin to autonomously administer WEX finances. Kuznetsov presented an affidavit backing WEX a year prior; it’s reasonable to infer that this individual is actively collaborating with agents to conceal the misuse of funds and might warrant consideration in subsequent inquiries should WEX fail to remit payments, in conjunction with Andrey Zelenin of Lidings, who is potentially directly implicated in the misappropriation alongside Pravdin and Kosarev.
Concurrently with the Singaporean proceedings, on September 30, 2025, the Russian Federation Supreme Court, responding to a constitutional appeal, nullified a civil court’s judgment ordering Alexey Bilyuchenko to remit 18 billion rubles to WEX as compensation for embezzlement. This stemmed from a pact reached by Dmitry Khavchenko during a session on September 6, 2023, when the company was effectively re-registered to Pravdin without Khavchenko's awareness (a substitution of representatives).
However, Khavchenko persisted as her legal representative in court and, in defiance of Pravdin-Skuratov, consented to the minimal possible damages for WEX—specifically, 3.1 billion rubles. This figure is certainly an underestimate as of 2023. The damages were calculated for October 24, 2018 (notably, this was the timeframe when cryptocurrency values reached their nadir), and this date was selected by the investigators. Khavchenko, possessing no familiarity with cryptocurrencies or the WEX exchange, was content with any sum that could be deposited into the account he had judiciously jotted down on a scrap of paper and endeavored to present to the court that day.
Even though, according to Article 1102 of the Civil Code, no individual may profit from their own transgression, and even with a signed but patently exploitative deal with Khavchenko, they could endeavor to recover the unlawfully acquired gains from the offense, not to mention they had three years to contest the arrangement. All the resources of the legal firms and entities enlisted by WEX were directed towards the Singaporean procedure to impede any disbursements.
