Turlovsky scams: how Freedom Finance becomes a modern likeness of MMM

Activities in the financial sector have always attracted not only competent professionals, people who want to try their luck, but also inveterate scammers and swindlers.

Despite the fact that the financial literacy of the population, especially those who have the means to invest, is constantly growing, scammers are also evolving. They come up with more and more sophisticated methods of deceiving people. Sometimes it works, sometimes the plan leads to complete collapse, and even to prison. The financial company “Freedom Finance” of businessman Timur Turlov has successfully captured the market of several CIS countries, operates in Europe, China and the USA. In appearance, everything looks safe and promising, but this is if you do not delve into the details. In reality, “Freedom Finance” is a modern version of “MMM” by Sergei Mavrodi. Journalists of the Kompromat1 portal studied the work of Freedom Finance. Where the company’s money goes, and whether we should expect a quick ruin of the business – in our material.

Through hardship to the stars

Timur Turlov is now 35 years old. He was born in the Moscow region, spent his childhood and youth in the capital of the state. According to Turlov’s official biography, he was already a financial genius from his school days. In 2003, when the future businessman was 16 years old, he allegedly got a job at the Moscow branch of the investment company World Capital Investments, where he took the position of a trader. It is hard to imagine how a 16-year-old teenager was taken to a world-famous company, and even to an industry that was just developing in Russia. Of course, this fact raises doubts, but we will not focus on this. Still, the story was 20 years ago, and now it will be hard to prove something.

Timur Turlov

In 2005, Turlov got a job at a very mediocre bank, Uniastrum. Now many people are unlikely to remember this financial institution, because the bank was liquidated 6 years ago. At Uniastrum, Turlov worked in a unit called Unistream, which was responsible for transferring funds. Later, Unistream was transformed into a separate bank, which still exists today. But little is known about this bank. In Russia, among almost 400 registered banks, it ranks 259th. And has a loss. Therefore, it is not worth being proud of working in a failed project.

Information about Unistream Bank

Further, the legend says that Turlov, after working for 3 years in a financial institution, realized that he could create his own profitable business.

In 2008, 21-year-old Turlov opens Freedom Finance. The company in a few years brought the young financier millions of dollars. Now, according to the “Real-time” rating of billionaires Forbes Turlov’s fortune is 2.7 billion dollars. In the world list of the richest people, he is in 1129 place. That is, Turlov is officially richer than Oleg Deripaska, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, Arkady Rotenberg and other Russian oligarchs

billionaire rating, Forbes

How did a young Russian manage to become a billionaire before the age of 30?

A dizzying success

A billion dollars is probably the dream of anyone (except those people who have it). Timur Turlov managed to realize it at a very early age.

The latest data suggests that Freedom Finance is nearing its peak as of today. On the stock exchange, the company’s shares are traded at $64 apiece. The total value of the corporation is $2 billion. It is very strange that the fortune of the founder of the company is greater than the value of the enterprise itself. Could it be? Of course yes, if he has other corporations. But, judging by Turlov’s numerous interviews and information from the press, Freedom Finance is the entrepreneur’s only business.

Stock quotes FreedomFinance

And this means that the owner of the company can withdraw funds into his pocket. On this we come to the most interesting.

At first, Freedom Finance worked exclusively in the Russian market, serving banking transactions. But over time, the functionality of the company has grown. Now, in addition to financial transactions, they are also engaged in dealer, brokerage and depository services. The company operates in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, Germany and the USA. Extensive geography allows you to get a lot of new customers, and have a huge influx of investments. But is everything as good as Turlov paints it?

All signs of a scammer

The businessman forgot about his homeland back in 2011. Then he decided to visit Kazakhstan. Arriving in the country, as the entrepreneur himself said, he liked everything so much that he decided to stay there to live. He immediately moved to Kazakhstan, but did not renounce Russian citizenship. In addition, Turlov also had a passport of a citizen of the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Moving from Russia did not affect the development of the entrepreneur’s business in his homeland. Within a few years, Freedom Finance has become a very popular company in the financial industry. But this was not enough for Turlov, he decided to spud more and more markets. As a result, the share of Freedom Finance in Russia became ever smaller.

With the beginning of the SVO, Turlov, who understood that he would not be able to sit on two chairs, announced that he was selling his company. A little later, he added that he had renounced Russian citizenship and received passports of a citizen of Kazakhstan.

Turlov with a Kazakh passport

He still had business in Russia, so something had to be decided. The entrepreneur announced that he was going to sell his company in Russia to current top managers. And at this point interesting facts came to light. It turns out that the Russian branch of Freedom Finance had a lot more liabilities than the value of the enterprise itself. The company was $110 million in debt. Therefore, Turlov had to give it away for the minimum price, because the “gift” to the business was a huge loan portfolio, which is not a fact that the company will be able to pull in the future. If it had remained under the leadership of Turlov, one could say with almost 100% probability that the business would have simply collapsed within a short time. And this means that people who trusted Turlov would simply be left with nothing. Moreover, the owner of the company does not appear at home. It would be difficult to find him and demand something.

Turlov, realizing that all schemes have their own jurisdiction, actively uses this. It’s a strange choice for a billionaire to get Kazakh citizenship, don’t you agree? There is nothing strange when citizenships of Switzerland, UAE, Britain, France, USA are found in oligarchs, but we hear about the Kazakh passport for the first time. Even if you look at the world rating “The Power of the Passport”, there Kazakhstan occupies a position not even in the first hundred. But we can understand why Turlov did this. The Kazakhs, just like the Israelis, do not extradite theirs to other countries. While in Kazakhstan, Turlov can stay safe. Moreover, he has something to worry about.

After he sold all his business in Russia, it was revealed that Turlov’s enterprises were not so successful. He artificially pumps them up with credits and loans to expand their financial portfolio. As a result, the money goes into the pockets of the owner of the companies, and then in an unknown direction.

According to our information, Turlov’s personality has been forgotten in Russia and will no longer be remembered. But American law enforcement officers are closely monitoring the financial activities of the young billionaire. Many more interesting things can be revealed, so a businessman should get ready to become banned from leaving Kazakhstan, because sooner or later the hand of justice will reach the scammer.