Kirill Doronin denies siphoning funds through the Finiko pyramid scheme

The Finiko pyramid scheme accepted only cryptocurrencies from investors, but not fiat funds. This was stated by the project’s founder Kirill Doronin in an interview on the program “Honest Detective”.

According to him, the impossibility of accepting fiat was due to a technical feature of the platform.

«People could not deposit anything in rubles, because initially the relationship between users and the system was built on cryptocurrencies. It is impossible to access the platform without cryptocurrency, without having deposited bitcoins into a crypto wallet. Personally, no money was brought to me by people. I did not commit embezzlement or deceit», – Doronin noted.

Doronin insists that Finiko was not a pyramid scheme. Now his lawyers are preparing a motion to conduct an examination by the Bank of Russia to identify violations in their handling of cryptocurrencies.

The founder of Finiko said that he was surprised by his arrest, since, in his words, the platform had been operating successfully and without a hitch for three years.

«I tried to resume the work of returning cryptocurrency, and even set up the payout process, i.e., “Finiko” paid investors up to $40 000 a day. Payouts were made in bitcoins. Of course, I would have continued the payouts to investors and increased them if it had not been for the decision to arrest me», – added Kirill Doronin.

Earlier, Kirill Doronin has been under arrest since the end of July 2021.

Co-founders Edward and Marat Sabirov, as well as Zygmunt Zygmuntowicz, have been declared in a international arrest warrant and arrested in absentia. According to investigators, they left Russia via Belarus and may be located in the United Arab Emirates.

The total damage from Finiko’s activities, according to independent estimates, exceeds $4 billion. The number of victims is no less than 850,000 people.

Earlier, Kirill Doronin made a deal with investigators and gave testimony against 44 accomplices in the pyramid scheme. He did not admit his guilt.

For more on Finiko’s pyramid scheme, read ForkLog’s special feature.

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