Bitcoin Forum

"The Central Bank of Russia revealed 782 cryptocurrency financial pyramids
At the same time, in the first quarter, 403 organizations with signs of financial pyramids were identified, in the second - 551, in the third - 527.
In the first nine months of 2022, the Central Bank identified more than 3.5 thousand companies with signs of illegal activity in Russia. Of these, about 1.5 thousand companies with signs of financial pyramids, more than 1,200 illegal creditors and over 900 illegal forex dealers.

"The number of identified financial pyramids is much more than in the nine months of last year (424 financial pyramids)," RIA Novosti quotes the words of the press service of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation."
https://tvzvezda.ru/news/20221018633-3ZiF5.html

Are there a lot of scams in your countries too?

If there are, I am not aware of them, at least not in such large numbers. But it is logical that I do not know much since I do not pay attention to "cryptocurrencies". I have long been interested only in Bitcoin and nothing else. I guess these pyramid scams are kind of get rich quick schemes where naive people want to find a quick way out of their problems by getting rich, and end up worse.

Yes, we've got lots of those as well, but not to that extent... It's worth noting that the real number is actually smaller than what they've reported simply because of the fact that most scammers tend to create multiple websites and just use the same skin or rather theme/template with little to no change!
^{- It'd be interesting to also see the results for previous years.}

I am aware that there are such scams, but as someone who always uses AdBlock I protect myself from looking at such things at all - but I know from the experience of others that such things exist, and that they often appear as ads on local websites, or use paid ads which are displayed through searches for specific keywords. It has also become commonplace to read in local newspapers that someone has been scammed by an unknown person who promised him a profit if he invests in Bitcoin - and often quite large sums of money are involved.

It's hard for some small countries like mine to measure up to what's happening in Russia, especially if everyone knows the fact that Russians have always been among the most interested when it comes to cryptocurrencies. I recently did a little experiment where I promoted a certain website, and about one third of the traffic still comes from Russia and Ukraine.

I've heard people investigating scammers in the past have also noted that some franchise out their own software to other teams that are capable of using it for carrying out similar scams which could probably be done here (even though those scammers in question were mostly discovering the teams that produce malicious ads on websites and similar scams that would draw a particular audience).

As well as evidence for previous years, how certain they are of their findings and how accurate they think they are might also be interesting - there could be more below the surface that haven't been detected and things that you can't find might have higher budgets and be worse than the ones you can.


I think there's more of an incentive to network and remain hidden in a lot of places too and only reveal yourself to people you think would be most likely to "invest" which could also be done in a lot of places where this doesn't seem like a large scam - or maybe people just got smart after the first few successful attempts in the past (like bitconnect).

It is somehow ironic that Satoshi creation, which main goal was to give an alternative to this crazy fiat money printing,  is now being used to print money and make financial pyramids.

There are some pyramids in Brazil as well , not as much. Some of them use cryptocurrencies and others don't (sometimes they create fake products that no one buys)

I believe many people who invest in pyramids are aware that they are investing in pyramids. They just want a quick rich scheme. Some people get it, and lots lose lots of money.

https://www.cbr.ru/press/event/?id=12695
"In 2021, the Bank of Russia identified almost 2.7 thousand illegal companies and financial pyramids
Among them are 871 pyramid schemes (in 2020 - 222), 860 illegal professional participants in the securities market (in 2020 - 395) and 948 companies with signs of "black creditors" (in 2020 - 821)."

https://www.interfax.ru/business/694010
"The Central Bank exposed 237 pyramid schemes in 2019"

I do not follow all the scams, but in recent years there are really a lot of Internet scams in Russia.

I completely forgot about those when I made my previous post ^{[thank you]} and I'd blame the markets that allow such listings and registrars that do nothing in return ^{[e.g. cough... Name... cough... cheap]}!

Not sure how they're detecting such scams in Russia, but in one of my countries ^[PH], they seem to be only counting or rather giving public announcements for those that already have some victims ^{[in other words, the latter part of your quote goes unnoticed until some of the victims approach the right department to report it (users can't rely on the government to keep them safe]}.

I think I'm missing the point with regard to Bitcoin's contribution to printing money, but scams are happening in various forms and unfortunately, this is one of them.

Thank you for the provided links... Unfortunately, it seems to be rising in the past few years but it could also mean that the Russian government is doing a better job nowadays in identifying them.

Internet is still extending its reach. Even more, now there's the internet money that can be hidden easier.
People are less and less educated and fall easier to this kind of scams. And as long as it's a "flourishing business", the number can only rise. The law enforcement agencies are learning too, but probably one step behind.


I didn't follow them, but I expect they're plenty, although I'd expect people be a tad more reluctant throw their money into them. I don't know if my expectations are according to the reality, I don't know of reports to look for, but people are also more afraid of the tech money - from credit cards and internet banking to cryptocurrencies - (and the "businesses" that accept fiat in hand can be caught easier).

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I will add something else. I think that comparing Russia in "flat" numbers with most of the countries is not a good math. Of course that smaller countries (i.e. most of the countries) will have less such problems.
What I mean is that maybe it would matter more to compare as % of total number of businesses, for example. Not that I would have numbers, but in case somebody has them, this could be a better comparison.

There has always been a lot of fraud in Russia, but the most interesting thing is that a lot of people voluntarily help the police to find scammers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZuKlDX_hYY
This is a special case, but you can see how long it took the police to detain a fraudster who is on the federal wanted list
A group of scammers stole about 4 billion dollars, the most interesting from 26 minutes.

There are scams related to bitcoin, etheruem and some others sure but I don't know about "a lot" as you used the word but there are scams like pyramid , networking scheme, Ponzi kind of set up and gullible get rich quick mindset fall a lot for it. I have heard of so many payment platform in my country that people want to introduce to me but I do research on them to find there sources and they are all scam.

To identify these pyramid scheme scam is not very difficult. You can do that by researching on the domain and most times you see it clearly the fraud that get rich quick guys fall into. If you try to educate them on why it will end up as fraud they won't yield until it finally crumbles in them losing large sum of money.

You can also identify scam pyramid because they appear as networking. They don't stand alone but need downliners to stay afloat. This is a sure sign you are about to lose the rug under your fit when it is pull off.

Any fraud is very easy to see because of the promises of big profits. Banks in my country take deposits at 8-14% per annum, investment companies offer deposits up to 30% per year (although there is a lot of fraud), but when you are offered 200-500% per year or more, then this is definitely a scam. But every year more and more people believe the scammers and lose their money. The main question is why people do not get smarter?

There are several reasons, but I think the biggest problem is that people are not educated, and in combination with greed, they become easy targets. The internet and cryptocurrencies have only made it easier for scammers to be present in literally every home, and people feel safe in the safety of their homes and make bad decisions very easily.

In addition to all that, scammers are very encouraged to carry out their activities because they know that very small fines await them even if they are caught by some chance. They would think a little better if the minimum sentence was 20 years in prison and confiscation of everything they gained through fraud.

Okay the reason is people will always be greedy. They are smart but greed over take their smartness and that make them to lose because they aim for that unrealistic investment which is a trap unknowing to them. Investment plan that someone want to put money into should be well researched. In fact my advise is not to invest on something that you have not heard of it genuity especially online.

Sadly, crypto made scamming it a lot easier for the scammers. There are lots of scams in my country too but they are losing popularity lately. A couple years ago there were a lot more local shitcoin projects looking for "funding" or "angel investors".  It is quite calm now thanks the gods. This is probably because crypto took a big hit in the prices since last year. When the prices go bull again we will start seeing them scammy projects again unfortunately.

Of course, Crypto fraud must exist in every country, for example Singapore, the Minister of Law said from 2019 to 2022, reports of crypto-based fraud continued to increase.
Recorded: 125 reports of crypto fraud received in 2019 and 397 cases of 2020 onwards 631 in 2020 & 2022, this is a sign that every year fraud cases continue to grow, but it is all done by scammers who are outside Singapore.

Although fraud cases continue to increase, law enforcement agencies are still working hard to investigate all cases of crypto fraud, although to varying degrees, For now, law enforcement continues to strive to provide public education to the public about the dangers of fraud, especially in the crypto field, hopefully in the future crypto users can avoid various types of fraud.

Oh... You are right. The bull is always the time you see more projects flying out and people perch on them because of the promise that they feel is real then suddenly comes the bear and everything dries up like a small river. This is the situation because during the bull everything is flourishing with bitcoin and the green is everywhere in CMC and gullible get rich fast investors are shown the pages of CMC and the volume plus profit accruing and more prospect for growth, they fluck on shitcoins.

yes and maybe bunch of it but its under the radar, Crypto is high risk high return things and scam industry maybe become the fast printing machine especially to unregulated things like crypto and become undetected

It's not just in Russia, it's a global problem. Pyramid schemes are available all over the world and especially in South Asian countries, it's a big problem. With the emergence of cryptocurrency, these scheme owners are cleverly disguising their schemes under the cryptocurrency concept and selling to public. These cryptos are not listed in any exchanges or in CMC.

In my country, I have come across at least 5 such schemes which are MLM/pyramid in nature but packaged as a cryptocurrency. Unfortunately they don't have any websites, so I am not able to share it here. But these are blatant lies. They don't have a blockchain and not even a website. It's good that Russia has started taking actions against them. 

I think there are many cases of fraud, as you have described. In each country, there must be cases like that and it's very difficult to eradicate because people don't seem to study before they decide to join. And after a while, people get all kinds of problems that cannot be solved properly and will end up in fraud. People who join investment projects or whatever just think and imagine how much profit they will get without determining whether the project is legal or illegal. And after they got into that problem, they realized that they had been deceived and lost a lot of money. People should be given the understanding that joining such projects should be very careful because they don't know how long the project can take.

https://tass.ru/ekonomika/19948609
The Central Bank identified more than 5.7 thousand financial pyramids and illegal brokers in 2023
"In 2023, the Bank of Russia identified more than 5.7 thousand pyramids and illegal financial service providers, which is 15.5% more than in 2022, according to the Central Bank’s materials.

“In 2023, the regulator discovered 15.5% more financial pyramids and illegal brokers than a year earlier,” notes the Bank of Russia. According to the regulator, 46% more financial pyramids were identified compared to 2022, and illegal lenders - by 9%. At the same time, the number of illegal participants in the securities market decreased by almost 30%."