{"id":7461,"date":"2020-01-19T21:21:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-19T19:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.media\/?p=7461"},"modified":"2020-01-20T16:53:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T14:53:27","slug":"another-pyramid-that-could-cashbery-crypto-and-the-legacy-of-a-post-soviet-scam-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/another-pyramid-that-could-cashbery-crypto-and-the-legacy-of-a-post-soviet-scam-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Pyramid That Could: Cashbery, Crypto, and the Legacy of a Post-Soviet Scam Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are important lessons that go by with seemingly minuscule effects. The legendary MMM, a pyramid scheme orchestrated by Sergei Mavrodi in the 1990s, is one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post-Soviet countries of the period were somewhat of a Wild West. The opportunities were huge, but not everybody was in a position to seize them. Those who could have gained money and power, while others lost everything to the massive financial crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MMM promised easy profit. You invest some money and get much more money back later on. Since there wasn\u2019t much to choose from, many people across the post-Soviet nations went all in, taking loans and selling their property to jump in early and get as much as they can from the magic MMM. Unsurprisingly to us, but quite surprisingly to MMM supporters, everything collapsed in a matter of months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mavrodi and his scheme became folklore. Yet, two decades have passed since MMM, and apparently, somebody tries to pull off the same trick again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This feature is about Cashbery, a complex scheme of companies, promises, and mysterious public figures. Let\u2019s explore the inner workings of a scheme that took Mavrodi\u2019s legacy seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Labyrinths of Vardanyan<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the official website, Cashbery is a group of companies consisting of Microcredit Company Warsaw LLC, Cashbery LLC, and Cashbery Limited registered in the UK. But there are other companies as well:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/beta.companieshouse.gov.uk\/company\/11533708\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u0421ashbery International Limited<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (registered in August 2018)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/beta.companieshouse.gov.uk\/company\/11011951\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery Group Limited<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (established in October 2017)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/beta.companieshouse.gov.uk\/company\/10977874\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashberytrading Limited<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (established in September 2017).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Notably, Cashbery Limited and \u0421ashbery International Limited are registered at the same address in London. Both companies have Artur Vardanyan as the CEO and secretary. Cashbery Group Limited and Cashberytrading Limited are also registered in London. According to the UK Registration Chamber, the CEO and secretary of both companies is Artur Vardanjan. Most likely these are two different transliterations of the same name, but there\u2019s more to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artur Vardanyan, the one affiliated with Cashbery Limited, was allegedly born in June 1980. Artur Vardanyan, the head of \u0421ashbery International Limited, however, was born in August 1983. The alleged CEOs and secretaries of Cashbery Group Limited and Cashberytrading Limited were both born in September 1981.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe the head of Cashbery skips through time and space, or maybe several people with very similar first and last names have simultaneously and independently decided to launch their own companies with coinciding names. Another option: somebody tries to fool the British authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, Cashbery Limited has 1 pound in share capital, while \u0421ashbery International Limited has 1 billion pounds. Out of 1,000 issued shares only a single one was actually purchased by Vardanyan, but the other 999 remain unpaid. Nevertheless, British laws allow the issuance of unpaid shares for their subsequent sale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Opera-Snimok_2018-11-12_144205_document-api-images-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com_-e1542051684167.png\" alt=\"Cashbery Limited Statement of Capital\" width=\"820\" height=\"441\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery Limited Statement of Capital<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Opera-Snimok_2018-11-12_144220_document-api-images-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com_-e1542051710655.png\" alt=\"Cashbery Limited Statement Initial Shareholdings\" width=\"820\" height=\"436\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery Limited Statement of Initial Shareholdings<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Opera-Snimok_2018-11-12_144106_document-api-images-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com_-e1542051810769.png\" alt=\"Cashbery International Limited Statement of Capital\" width=\"820\" height=\"436\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery International Limited Statement of Capital<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Opera-Snimok_2018-11-12_144052_document-api-images-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com_-e1542051787524.png\" alt=\"Cashbery Limited Statement of Initial Shareholdings\" width=\"820\" height=\"443\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>Cashbery Limited Statement of Initial Shareholdings<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery Limited has been dissolved and its property and rights now belong to the British crown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Opera-Snimok_2018-11-12_144303_document-api-images-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com_.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery Limited and Cashbery LLC are bound by an agency agreement as of December 11th, 2016. According to the agreement, the Russian company (Cashbery LLC) operates in the Russian Federation on behalf of and at the expense of the British company (Cashbery Limited). The head of Cashbery LLC <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/egrul.nalog.ru\/download\/9B234A46C3F10234AC46FD58D90F174A202DC039B1501F3C41C9001E1A31B59C94EF280C94F09F50A1280731E38B10CC\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">listed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Russia\u2019s Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE) is Roman Alekseevich Alekseev, who has made the initial capital contribution of 10,000 rubles (around $160 at the time of writing).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curiously, between 2013 and 2018, the registered address of Cashbery LLC matched the address of a company called Microfinance Organization Cashbery LLC, also headed by Alekseev. He also appears to head the firms Veles LLC, Bet LLC, Stem LLC, and Ferrocom Service CJSC. According to SPARK-Interfax, the companies either have tax debts or haven\u2019t provided any financial statements.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microcredit Company Warsaw LLC, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/egrul.nalog.ru\/download\/8F250B66DBB53E965421005567DFFB1A3D808260A8B7ECD8CB4DC61584E6428990A1E882568503A49A430D3B0DEB5086B63AB4677E28C8F6DDFCE9B829F63780\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">registered<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Moscow in June 2017, is headed by Vadim Vyacheslavovich Gerasimov, who contributed 50,000 rubles ($800) to the company\u2019s authorized capital. Notably, twenty days prior, in a Bashkortostan village, somebody created a legal entity called Cashbery Holding LLC, although there are no details about it on the USRLE website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery operations weren\u2019t focused solely on Russia, though. Reportedly, in 2018, the company <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.obozrevatel.com\/economics\/v-ukraine-poyavilas-krupnejshaya-finansovaya-piramida-razdayut-dengi-i-obeschayut-ogromnyij-zarabotok.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">opened<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> its 170th office in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yet, the official website has no mentions of the new office, while contacts of Cashbery mentors were to be found only in closed Telegram channels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When googled in Ukrainian, the search results page shows two Ukrainian websites called Cashbery that offer instant loans. The company behind these two websites, however, is called Financial Company Invest Finance LLC. Its beneficiaries are Karen Oganesyan, Karine Tumagayan, and Kartum Invest LLC. Oganesyan and Tumagayan are the founders of Kartum Invest LLC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In January 2018, Financial Company Invest Finance LLC took part in electronic bidding for a land plot with cadastral number 8000000000:78:139:0055. According to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/opendatabot.ua\/court\/72791904-8a86138b915e2c0d9e2df6601b83b39f\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pre-trial investigation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the land has changed hands without proper approval from the authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Note that the de facto addresses of Cashbery LLC and Cashbery Limited are located in Dubai, while the phone numbers are shown for Russian cities Moscow, Kazan, Rostov, and Yekaterinburg, as well as for Kazakhstan and Mexico.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cashbery Limited and Cashbery International Limited are allegedly engaged in &#8220;undifferentiated production of private household services for their own needs,&#8221; while Cashbery Group Limited and Cashberytrading Limited are investment companies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As it is probably clear now, Cashbery is a true maze of limited liability companies.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>An offer that should\u2019ve been rejected<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vito_Corleone-e1542051358303.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the slogan \u201cWith us it\u2019s simple and profitable,\u201d the company was offering investors to profit from a range of activities: microloans for individuals, loans for small and medium-sized businesses, loans collateralized with movable and immovable property, as well as cryptocurrency loans, cryptocurrency investing, and algorithmic trading.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the service packages had flashy names: Luxury, Premier, President-Partner, VIP-Partner, Emperor. Cashbery promised its investors astronomical profit: Luxury package implied 220% profit over 400 days from microloans, while those who could afford a minimal deposit of 500,000 rubles ($8,000) would have enjoyed a 300% profit over the same 400 days. Cryptocurrency investing and algorithmic trading were supposed to bring a 100% profit for 500 days as well as an upgrade to respective service packages. Cashbery\u2019s main page, however, mentioned 550% annual profit. At the same time, Cashbery offered options to gain interest on a daily basis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The platform took deposits in rubles, euros, dollars, hryvnias, tenge, Bitcoin, and Ether. Moreover, the company allegedly had an insurance fund to ensure the extra security of investors\u2019 money. According to Vardanyan, the fund was later dissolved to pay off debts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, Russia\u2019s central bank reported that the group of companies under the Cashbery brand doesn\u2019t have the necessary licenses or doesn\u2019t appear to show any real financial activity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The case ended up in Russia\u2019s Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General\u2019s office. On October 12th, 2018, Cashbery ceased operations. Shortly afterward, on the 1st of November, the company proclaimed itself defunct. The respective statements were made in YouTube videos by a person calling themselves Artur Vardanyan. This identity, however, is doubtful at best.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Vardanyan, Vardanyan, and Vardanyan<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sergei Mavrodi once <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/esquire.ru\/rules\/2481-sergey-mavrodi\/#part2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">said<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that his face depicted on MMM tickets made people believe that he won\u2019t run away. Artur Vardanyan\u2019s YouTube videos were probably serving the same purpose. According to the BBC, some investors <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/russian\/features-46066396\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">doubt<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the very existence of Artur Vardanyan. They believe the man who goes by this name is, in fact, Eduard Rezanov, a resident of Magnitogorsk born in 1988, who looks very much like the person in the videos in question.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/4747.jpg.1453289570.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 10pt;\">Eduard Rezanov (first one in the top row)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bezymyannyj-6.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Eduard Rezanov<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of Rezanov\u2019s acquaintances told BBC that Eduard\u2019s job wasn\u2019t related to finance and that Eduard speaks differently from the man in the videos. He also hasn&#8217;t seen Rezanov in a few years. Additionally, Rezanov allegedly starred in a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qNEC2FUez-8\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">music video<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of a local rock band. The band\u2019s leader Sergei Veremenko believes that Eduard is not the guy who could pull off such a complicated fraud and has nothing to do with the person in the Cashbery videos.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet, the BBC managed to find and talk to another acquaintance of Rezanov with different views. They believe that Artur Vardanyan looks and talks exactly like Eduard Rezanov. The acquaintance, though, opted to stay anonymous.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keen YouTube users have found a photo of Rezanov in a club in Magnitogorsk. Importantly, the picture reveals a characteristic tattoo, which can also be found on Vardanian in one of his pictures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gb0jLQ_XwU8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is impossible to say for certain if Eduard Rezanov is indeed the man who plays the role of Vardanyan. But it would be unwise to leave this idea out entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Colossus<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one of his videos, Artur Vardanyan <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kXZN9Qja0fg&amp;t=480s\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">promised<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to reimburse only the verified users. Those who wish to keep their identity concealed were prompted to make a deposit for an equivalent sum in a new project called Global Decentralized Community (GDC).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vardanyan promised to pay off a quarter of the debt with the platform\u2019s native cryptocurrency Cashbery Coin at $1.07 per coin. Unfortunately for the investors, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/coinmarketcap.com\/currencies\/cashbery-coin\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">price<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of Cashbery Coin soon dropped by several orders of magnitude.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artur stressed that users\u2019 debts will migrate to the new platform if the sum of debt to a user doesn\u2019t exceed 30,000 rubles ($480) or a user has withdrawn 90% of the money, regardless of the sum. Those who made their deposits via electronic payment systems or cryptocurrency platforms won\u2019t be able to get the money back yet, allegedly because Cashbery\u2019s accounts have been blocked there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He also suggested selling Cashbery accounts along with the debts tied to them through a so-called \u201caccount exchange\u201d soon-to-be-launched on the GDC platform.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On November 12th, 2018, Cashbery websites were <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/proisshestviya\/5783817\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">blocked<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by court order, as the information presented there was \u201cmisleading the consumers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vardanyan added that GDC will become the \u201ccolossus of the industry,\u201d and the whole story about Cashbery&#8217;s fraudulent nature is made up by journalists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b><i>\u201cThe thing we are going to create will amaze the MLM industry and the entire humankind,\u201d<\/i><\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> he said.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether driven by the hope for profit, plain desperation, or something else entirely, people keep investing in shady schemes. It seems surprising, especially after all the lessons people across the post-Soviet countries have had.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But hey, what if it actually worked this time?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Written by Nick Schteringard<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow us on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/forklogmedia\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklogmedia\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and join our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogmedia\">Telegram channel<\/a>\u00a0to know what\u2019s up with crypto and why it\u2019s important.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are important lessons that go by with seemingly minuscule effects. The legendary MMM, a pyramid scheme orchestrated by Sergei Mavrodi in the 1990s, is one of them. The post-Soviet countries of the period were somewhat of a Wild West. The opportunities were huge, but not everybody was in a position to seize them. Those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"human_written","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[798],"tags":[30,549],"class_list":["post-7461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investigations","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-scam"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"628","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7461"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7860,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7461\/revisions\/7860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}