There is a “pyramid boom” in Russia

As the manager of the Federal Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Depositors and Shareholders, Marat Safiulin, said during a press conference at the NSN, now a new financial pyramid is born in Russia every four hours.

“If in 2020 the number of pyramids was around 200-300 maximum, now we have 2,000 pyramids, this has never happened before. In recent years, we have seen a sharp surge: plus 400% was the year before last, plus 200% last year. Every four hours a new financial pyramid is born. Why did we come to such figures? Because people are not always at ease, they make irrational decisions because they are worried. In times of crisis, there is always a surge in fraudulent practices. Pandemic, crisis, NWO – all this has left its mark on people’s activities. In difficult times, we always have scammers working in three shifts,” Marat Safiulin explained.

However, as he noted, not everything is so bad and hopeless, because banks are constantly working to identify financial fraudsters. Thus, in 2022 alone, the Bank of Russia discovered almost 5,000 entities with signs of illegal activity (companies, projects, individual entrepreneurs, etc.). Among them are almost 2 thousand pyramids, 1.2 thousand illegal professional participants in the securities market and 1.7 thousand “black creditors”.

“Due to the activities of financial fraudsters, Russians annually lose about 100 billion rubles. This is a very “round” amount that comes out of our economy, which does not go to help our citizens. It goes to finance the most condemned activities. This needs to be fought as decisively as possible, since this is already a matter of national security,” said Marat Safiulin.

According to him, now there are some of the most dangerous schemes that scammers use:

“We, in our public project called Stop the Pyramid, have identified approximately 10 of the most dangerous schemes that are currently on the market. I will list the most difficult forms of them: firstly, as the Bank of Russia showed, 97% are so-called Internet projects (they can be in various variations, but every second financial pyramid is a cryptocurrency one); secondly, these are pseudo-cooperatives (they are designed for age conservative people who want to earn more than in a bank); thirdly, these are allegedly state platforms for earning money (scammers convince you that you have to invest some amount in this platform, and it will generate some income for you); fourthly, these are online games in the form of a pyramid, which are already designed for young people. The fifth position is occupied by “supertrading”: a person is convinced that he can easily earn millions by entering the financial market. The most dangerous story is when you are allegedly taught financial literacy and involved in the provision of so-called financial services in the process of training: you allegedly conclude some kind of contract, start investing, you are already supposedly a broker, you have some kind of financial account opened. Then they tell you that you are a nugget, or, on the contrary, they scare you that you will lose everything if some “wolf from Wall Street” doesn’t help you right now. Of course, they will help you and find a wonderful way to attach your money.

According to another participant in the press conference, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy Artyom Kiryanov, the surge in activity of financial scammers now observed is associated with formats of financial activity disappearing in the legal space:

“There are gaps in legal activity. This is due to the sanctions policy, with the inability of people to invest in the usual formats, such as stocks, to participate in the financial market. There are proposals, say, to buy US stocks in a roundabout way. You are sending money somewhere outside the Russian Federation, and it is quite possible that you will not see this money again. The second aspect is digitalization, it also determines the activities of fraudsters, we see an increase in crimes in cyberspace related to financial relations. When these two moments are combined, a situation that is very dangerous for a person arises when, not being able to invest within the framework of his usual ideas, he begins to use the digital mechanisms offered by scammers in order to somehow use these usual formats of financial activity.

As a safe alternative, Artyom Kiryanov suggested that Russians invest their money in gold and precious stones that are mined in Russia.

Sergei Ishkov.

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