Easy to borrow: the number of financial pyramids has decreased in Russia
The number of subjects found with signs of finpyramide decreased by 20% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. However, the number of those who have signs of an illegal professional participant in the securities market and illegal creditors, on the contrary, increased by 13% and 28%, respectively. The details are in the Izvestia article.
Constant checks
In order to prevent fraudulent projects from growing and causing serious damage to citizens, the Bank of Russia has set up an Internet monitoring system, the Central Bank's press service told Izvestia. It helps to identify websites, pages on social networks and messengers that are used by fraudsters and illegal financial service providers.
"Information about the identified Internet resources is sent to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation to take measures to restrict access to them. In the first quarter of 2025, based on information from the Bank of Russia, more than 2.5 thousand pyramid scheme websites were blocked. At the same time, access restrictions occur promptly — an average of three days after the identification of such resources," the Central Bank said.
In order to promptly warn about the emergence of new pyramids and other illegal projects, the Bank of Russia discloses information about the revealed facts of illegal activities on its website in the List of companies with signs of illegal activities and financial pyramids, the Central Bank recalled. This list is updated daily. There are already over 21,500 entries in it, in most cases illegal immigrants whose activities have already been discontinued. Government and commercial structures also use information from the list to mitigate the risks of their clients and counterparties.
"Additionally, credit institutions are informed about payment instruments used by illegal immigrants, and data on crypto wallets that were used to raise funds for pseudo-investment projects is sent to Rosfinmonitoring. In addition, banks can apply the tools laid down in the "anti—money laundering" legislation to illegal companies," the press service of the Bank of Russia said.
The regulator also recalled that in 2024, a law was passed that prohibits organizations that are not supervised by the Bank of Russia, as well as their intermediaries, from publicly attracting investments from citizens. In December last year, administrative liability was introduced for such violations.
The Central Bank recalled the basic rules that must be followed in order not to become a victim of cybercriminals. First of all, you should not trust anonymous Internet pages and messenger channels that advertise the activities of various projects based on attracting money to questionable investment schemes.
"Pay attention to the wording: guarantees of profitability, unrealistic benefits. The abundance of buzzwords most often covers up the lack of a real business. And attracting contributions in cryptocurrency or through a transfer to an individual immediately gives out a fraudulent scheme in such a project. If there are problems, you will not be able to prove the payment and return your funds. We strongly advise everyone that before you decide to entrust your money to any company, spend just a few minutes," the Bank of Russia advised.
The regulator also recommended checking the Central Bank's website to see if the company has a license. You should also check if there is any information about her in the List of companies with signs of illegal activities and pyramid schemes.
An integrated approach has proven itself in the fight against financial pyramids, the company F6, which develops technologies to combat cybercrime, told Izvestia. It includes both financial supervision by the regulator and the publication of blacklists, as well as operational monitoring and blocking of fraudulent resources. For example, F6 identified more than 10,000 domains for fraudulent investment projects a year ago. In addition, according to financial market participants, it is necessary to strengthen criminal liability under Article 172.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for the creation of financial pyramids.
At the same time, F6 experts advise not to believe the promises of "guaranteed high income in 50%, 100%, 200%", " financial freedom", "effortless income" and "dream job": These marker words are the main feature of the pyramid.
"Do not transfer money to personal cards or anonymous accounts — only official settlement accounts of legal entities," F6 reminded.
Fraudulent activity
If we turn to the statistics published by the Central Bank, we can note a decrease in the activity of financial pyramids compared to the previous quarter, said Alexey Voylukov, MBA professor of business practice in digital Finance at the Presidential Academy, in an interview with Izvestia. However, it should be borne in mind that these indicators are quite volatile — it is more correct to compare similar quarters. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that in 2024 there was a sharp increase in fraudulent activity: the number of identified financial pyramids almost doubled — by 90%. A significant increase was also observed in other types of fraud.
— The peculiarity of the current situation is that the vast majority of fraudulent schemes, including financial pyramids (up to 99%), operate on the Internet. That is why the main direction of counteraction is digital. First of all, this is the blocking of websites, pages on social networks and messengers where fraudulent content is distributed," the expert said.
According to him, these measures are implemented promptly: from the moment a resource is identified to its blocking, it takes from several hours to three days. At the same time, Operational monitoring of the Internet space is becoming a key tool in the fight against criminals. In the future, there will be widespread use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Such technologies can analyze large amounts of information, identify repetitive patterns, and generate preliminary samples for verification by specialists. This will allow you to respond faster to new threats and limit the spread of fraudulent resources.
The main problem in the fight against financial pyramids is that most of them today use the capabilities of modern digital technologies and social networks, Oleg Akimov, associate professor of the Department of Banking and Entrepreneurship at the State University of Management, noted in an interview with Izvestia. According to statistics, about 98% of financial pyramids today mainly operate in the form of Internet projects, including on social networks and the Telegram messenger. Thus, financial pyramids have become easier to create, unlimited opportunities have appeared for their promotion among an audience of millions, and the creators of such pyramids themselves are often outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.
"In this regard, blocking the Internet resources of financial pyramids and illegal financial service providers remains the main method of combating such a negative phenomenon," he believes.
Today, anyone can become a victim, not just an elderly person, Igor Rastorguev, a leading analyst at AMarkets, told Izvestia. However, pensioners do remain at high risk.: they most often have savings, they want to increase them for the sake of their grandchildren, they believe in promises and are not always able to verify information. In order not to become a victim of a fraudster, the main thing is not to hesitate to doubt. And if there is even the slightest doubt, contact the Central Bank or the police. Only mass vigilance and constant verification of information can stop the spread of such schemes.
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