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Law enforcement authorities in the United Arab Emirates have arrested a top Finiko representative, wanted for his role in the crypto-Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors worldwide. This is the second arrest in the Gulf state of a senior member of the pyramid announced in the past month.
Another person who has been involved in the organization of Russia’s largest financial pyramid in recent years, Finiko, has been taken into custody in the UAE. The release of Edward Sabirov in the Arab country follows last month’s news of the arrest of Ponzi scheme co-founder Zygmunt Zygmuntovich. Both are said to have played key roles in the embezzlement of millions from the fraud’s victims.
Sabirov was placed on an international wanted list on November 12, the Russian Prosecutor’s Office told the RIA Novosti news agency. The United Arab Emirates National Bureau of Interpol announced his arrest on 30 November. Russia’s national central agency Interpol has already petitioned the UAE authorities for a 60-day detention and stated Russian intentions to request his extradition from the country’s justice ministry.
Another of Finiko’s high-profile representatives, Marat Sabirov, is still wanted. Investigators point out that the Sabirovs were directly related to the top management of the cryptopyramid, and were close associates of its founder and mastermind, Kirill Doronin, who has been in a Russian prison since July 2021. Together with Zygmuntovich, they managed to leave Russia as the scheme was about to collapse.
Finiko, which was never established as a legal entity, was based in Kazan, the capital of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. It had branches in more than 70 other Russian regions promoting investments in a virtual platform, giving extraordinarily high returns of up to 5% a day. Earlier this year, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that it had received around 10,000 applications from victims claiming losses of more than 5 billion rubles (close to $80 million).
However, the actual damage from Finiko’s activities is likely to be much higher. The Ponzi scheme raised capital from unsuspecting investors in Russia, Ukraine and other countries in the former Soviet space, EU nations such as Germany, Austria and Hungary, the United States and elsewhere. Many of the victims were asked to send cryptocurrency to Finiko’s wallets, and according to a report by Chainalysis, the pyramid received more than $1.5 billion in bitcoin between December 2019 and August 2021.
Besides Doronin, Zygmuntovich and the Sabirov family, more than 20 other people have been accused of participating in the massive fraud. The list includes Lilia Nurieva and Dina Gabdullina as well as Finiko’s vice president Ilgiz Shakirov who was arrested in Tatarstan. Anna Serikova, Finiko’s managing director better known by the pseudonym Tiffany, was also detained.
Do you think UAE law enforcement will also find and arrest Marat Sabirov or other Finiko members? Tell us in the comments section below.
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