Hundreds of private investors from different regions of the country invested 10 billion rubles in the Welfare Fund, which invested in cryptocurrency. Or pretended to invest. The creators of the project promised their clients high incomes, apartments, cottages and planes at half price and, in general, a beautiful life of millionaires. For the sake of such a future, many investors risked selling their own apartments, they told Izvestia. However, after a short period, the payments stopped – people were never able to return the invested millions. The criminal case on fraud, initiated on the fact of theft, has not yet yielded results. On March 2, investors gathered at the fund’s office, but its doors were closed. Why the creators of unsuccessful investment projects manage to hide with other people’s millions, Izvestia figured it out.
“Without apartments, without housing, without huge sums…”
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Private clients of the investment fund “Prosperity” from different regions of the country suffered from the actions of its founders, investors told Izvestia. According to preliminary estimates, people invested 10 billion rubles in a project that promised big profits from investments in cryptocurrencies.
Many contributors sold their only apartments, and carried the money to the fund. But in the end, they lost most of the funds, and the project itself, in their opinion, turned out to be an ordinary financial pyramid.
“We and many other investors have been deceived. People were left without apartments, without housing, without huge amounts of money, ”Olesya Alekseeva, a former client of the fund, told Izvestia.
“By opening an account today for 1 million, in a year you will receive 3 million,” read the commercial for “Prosperity” and VISO, “a boutique of profitable offers,” as its creators called it. They offered their clients to invest in bitcoin with a “guaranteed monthly return” of 5-12%.
“Well-being. We are trusted by millions,” the fund worked under this slogan, follows from its promotional video. It also says that the minimum entry into the project was 100,000 rubles. And 12% can be obtained with a one-time investment of 5 million rubles.
The fund’s managers entered into an agreement with investors “on the trust placement of funds”, the money was transferred to the current account. The contracts (Izvestiya has it) state that “income from investment activities is not the contractor’s profit and represents the contractor’s accounts payable to the client.”
In order to convince potential investors of the reliability of the project, the founders of the fund regularly organized win-win lotteries, presented expensive gifts, conducted trainings and invited them to a special club – “for millionaires”. Announced the opening of a premium class office in one of the Moscow City towers. They promised to buy expensive and prestigious things – cars, apartments, branded watches and even airplanes – at half price. “In the club of millionaires, we all get high,” the blooming ladies from the promo video reported. In another promotional video, an unknown man assured that he had already bought his own plane with the money earned in the fund.
According to the SPARK database, the CEO of Blagopoluchie LLC is Vitaly Sokolovsky. Contracts with clients were signed by his partner Vitaly Pavlov. In one of the videos, he calls the investment process a game, and contracts with new investors a harvest. Both businessmen appear in most of the company’s promotional videos and have stakes in many smaller firms, follows from the SPARK database.
It is known about Vitaly Pavlov that the Balashikha court in June 2022 already decided to recover 500 thousand rubles of debt from him in a civil lawsuit. Pavlov borrowed this money from the plaintiff and did not return it, follows from the court decision. The rest of the victims have not yet received their money back. There is little information about Vitaly Sokolovsky: open sources only say that he studied at MGIMO.
According to the victims, the fund managers assured them that the money was “directly invested in a number of promising crypto projects.” They promised to show “on what instruments the profit was made”. But where their money was actually invested, investors never found out. The victims do not have confidence that their investments worked in the real investment market.
“Guilty of gullibility”
The victims told Izvestia that some of them received payments, but in November 2022 they completely stopped.
To become investors in the fund, the Gorshkov family from Moscow sold an apartment. They hoped that in this way they would be able to earn money for the treatment of their disabled daughter. The fund offered to double the investment as soon as possible. But prosperity in the family did not come – the Gorshkovs were left without money and housing.
– My family has invested 11 million. We have nowhere to live, we sit on bags. We can’t rent a house because we don’t have money. The money of my youngest daughter, which we had set aside for rehabilitation, also went to the fund, ”investor Olga Gorshkova told Izvestia.
Pensioner Valentina Kostenko two years ago came under the resettlement program from emergency housing in the Arkhangelsk region. True, instead of an apartment, she received compensation – almost 2 million rubles. Representatives of the fund convinced the woman to invest these funds in a “super profitable” project. Now the pensioner is forced to rent a one-room apartment in Shcherbinka, and her daughter helps her with food and treatment.
I can’t live, I can’t sleep. I understand that I am to blame – I am guilty of my gullibility, – Valentina Ivanovna cries.
Oleg Demidov from Moscow told Izvestia that he had invested 30 million rubles in “Prosperity”, and there were still victims from Saratov, Penza, St. Petersburg and other cities.
The fund’s client Yuri Matrosov and other investors, who studied in detail the scheme of his work, told Izvestia that specially trained people – drops – helped to involve potential investors in business management. They, investors believe, come from other similar projects. Drops contacted people in instant messengers and social networks and, using the example of their own success, convinced them to make a contribution.
According to the fund’s client Nikolai Spirin, before stopping payments, Vitaly Pavlov, along with his wife and companions, went to rest in the Maldives.
“Although there was no money to pay investors at that time, and the fund was doing poorly,” the man said.
There is no tool in the economy that can guarantee a return higher than the bank interest, trader Nikolai Solabuto shared his opinion with Izvestia.
“Prosperity” has a good sign, but in fact, in my opinion, this is an ordinary Ponzi pyramid (Charles Ponzi is an Italian “pyramid builder”, the founder of the “Ponzi scheme”. – Izvestia). In it, old investors receive income from the investments of new investors, the expert believes.
In such schemes, the first deposits are made, as a rule, to affiliated persons – relatives and friends of the founders of the project, who subsequently receive profit from new investors. From the point of view of the law, this is considered illegal enrichment, the expert drew attention.
– Then the founders of the pyramid run away, and people are left without money. This scheme has been known since the time of Mavrodi, who promised his investors 17% per day and also said that he was investing in shares of various companies, the trader recalled.
The cryptocurrency market is similar to the stock market and the stock market. The price of one unit of cryptocurrency depends on objective events in the world, including in the field of electronics and components, Tatyana Zavyalova, a member of the Russian Bar Association, told Izvestia.
– Now the cryptocurrency is in a calm state without price jumps, so it is difficult to earn such percentages, as promised by “Prosperity”. Real can be called from 2 to 8% per year, – said the expert.
Unidentified persons
Where the founders of the fund are now, investors do not know. According to one version, Vitaly Pavlov is abroad. Vitaly Sokolovsky, in their opinion, may be hiding in Russia. The leaders of the investment project occasionally get in touch, promising to pay off customers.
On November 17, 2022, investigators opened a criminal case against unidentified persons. These persons stole someone else’s property under the pretext of a loan, it follows from the case file.
“In the case there are sufficient data indicating the signs of a crime under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, ”the decision to initiate a criminal case says.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to find out why the defendants in the case were not identified and what role investment agreements play in their establishment. These documents contain the names and signatures of all participants in the investment process, including the leaders of the Welfare Fund.
Tired of waiting for the results of the investigation, on March 2, depositors gathered at the fund’s office on Pyatnitskaya Street in Moscow demanding the return of their money, an Izvestia correspondent who visited the scene was convinced. But they stumbled upon closed doors and called the police, after which they wrote a collective statement. To achieve justice, they are ready to reach the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin.
Legislation is not adapted to protect the rights and interests of investors in the digital space, so it is extremely difficult to ensure the safety of their finances in this area. The investigation can trace the perpetrators, but with great difficulty, and this complicates the full progress of the criminal case, lawyer Tatyana Zavyalova explained.
A criminal case is initiated against unidentified persons in the event that the investigation does not have enough evidence to charge specific people. But that could happen once the evidence is found, she said.
