Shopping procession: how the Hermesplat exchange cheated customers out of billions
Close relatives and people from the entourage of businessman, president of the CSKA football club Evgeny Giner and his son Vadim could lose about 1.2 billion rubles on investments in the Hermesplat exchange, which turned out to be a pyramid scheme. This follows from the documents at the disposal of Izvestia. The victims are counted in the thousands, and they themselves estimate the total damage at several billion rubles. Former banker Roman Malinchuk, who was previously convicted of fraud, and failed rapper Artur Melikov were involved in the project. Clients were promised a yield of up to 100% per month. But one day it turned out that the trades on the exchange were fictitious, and all the money received from investors was transferred to the Hermesplat organizers' crypto wallet and withdrawn in an unknown direction. How the scam was organized and who is behind it is in the investigation of Izvestia.
Great Combinators
A group of young people gathered in a cozy Moscow cafe. A middle-aged man in severe glasses and a light beige suit stands in front of them. Gesturing, he explains the basics of stock psychology to the audience.:
— Now everyone is rushing to the carrot, to profit, — he smiles, like a professor. — But relax: there will always be carrots. Someone has a little more, someone less — it all depends on the exit time. Look at the last five days: the bidding was clear, all thanks to discipline...
—I agree," says a tall guy with tattoos on his neck and an afro hairstyle standing next to him. — Today we have a strong team, we provide maximum support to everyone...
"Support each other,— the man in the beige suit interrupts him. — When someone from management is unavailable, you have to help each other. Mutual help is the main thing.
This was the look of one of the meetings of the closed Moscow group RA CLAN, a community of people who decided to join the Hermesplat trading platform. The "mentors" who led the meeting were the leaders of the club: former bank employee Roman Malinchuk and his young partner, musician Artur Melikov.
At that time, none of the participants could have imagined that very soon they would need advice on cohesion.
Initially, according to Melikov, RA CLAN was created in 2018 as a music label for aspiring artists. However, a couple of years later, he and Malinchuk essentially relaunched the project in a new capacity — a closed club for investing on the Hermesplat exchange.
In fact, it was Malinchuk who soon assumed a key role: he moderated the main chats, assembled new groups, and had a network of his own contacts to attract large investments. At the same time, Melikov remained the face of the project and a public motivator, but the actual control over the influx of investors, large sums and decision-making on group management strategies passed to Malinchuk.
This is important for understanding further events: it is the internal disputes and conflicts between Malinchuk and Melikov that will become the catalyst for public showdowns and mutual accusations when the scheme collapses, and thousands of participants from Irkutsk to Crimea will be left with nothing.
Fateful meeting
At the center of this story are two people whose paths crossed a few years before the RA CLAN became a community of crypto investors. Artur Melikov came to Moscow from Vladikavkaz. He worked as a waiter in one of the restaurants, but dreamed of becoming a famous rap artist. During the next shift, fate brought him together with one of the regulars of the institution. It was former banker Roman Malinshchuk, who himself had just begun to wean himself off the booze in the Vodnik detention center in the capital. In 2015, by the verdict of the Basmanny court, the financier received five years for fraud on an especially large scale. According to the case file, one of the businessmen in the capital handed Malynshchuk two bags with 35 million rubles so that he could exchange them for foreign currency, but the financier did not change the currency, and did not return the money.
One word at a time, and Malinchuk, according to Melikov's story, promised to help him advance his musical career.
"It seemed to me that his connections and money would help me with my work," Melikov recalls in an interview with Izvestia.
According to the musician, he met Roman more than once on production issues, but soon realized that he was "pinning false hopes" on Malinchuk, and over time their communication was minimized.
However, at some point, Arthur, according to him, turned to Malinschuk again, this time with a request to borrow money to invest in the new Hermesplat exchange, which allegedly traded futures for cryptocurrency and promised income of up to 100% per month from investments. According to Melikov, he learned about the exchange from a girl he knew named Felicia, whom he met on Facebook (owned by Meta Corporation, which is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia).
Malinchuk did not give money, but showed interest in the project and even allegedly arranged his own verification of the platform, after which he not only registered on the platform, but also promised to invite his friends with large deposits there.
— He was satisfied with the information on the results of the weekly check. At the same time, at the initial stage, I repeatedly told Roman that there were no guarantees in this earnings, he said that he understood that everything worked here, like in a casino," Artur later recalled.
A way to earn money
The earnings scheme proposed by Hermesplat representatives is described in dozens of statements to the police from now-former cryptotraders.
To access the platform, it was necessary to install a special application — it could not be found on Google Play or the App Store, it was distributed only via invitation links in Telegram. After registration, the user replenished the account balance in the application, after which it was added to one of the Telegram groups dedicated to trading.
Muscovites were grouped into RA CLAN groups, which were controlled by Malynshchuk and Melikov, but similar communities existed in other cities of Russia. In Irkutsk, for example, the Invest 38 group operated, which was allegedly led by a foreigner named Wendy. At the same time, the main supervisors of all such groups and their administrators were certain foreigners named Danny and Alice.
Investors performed all operations on the Hermesplat platform strictly according to trading signals — recommendations that came from Danny and Alice.
Trading instructions were sent in the form of screenshots with instructions on when and what to buy or sell. The trading session was held simultaneously for all: On command, participants opened or closed palm oil futures trades by watching the charts in the app.
— Danny and Alice supervised the work of the other administrators. They allegedly had a direct connection with the top managers of Hermesplat (which did not even have a normal application), thanks to which they allegedly had insider information on trades, one of the affected investors told Izvestia.
At the same time, participants in closed Telegram groups were forbidden to independently perform any operations or trade anything else: any attempts to deviate from the instructions were, by a strange coincidence, quickly noticed by the curators, and violators were criticized.
— It was necessary to do everything according to the instructions in the Telegram channel, not to go into other places. And if you try to trade on something else, you may lose a few cents, but everyone will immediately find out about it from somewhere and start swearing. It was strictly forbidden to trade at other times and in other positions," another victim told Izvestia.
Lost illusions
Since the platform was founded in 2023, everything has been going smoothly: participants have been actively investing money, freely withdrawing funds, inviting friends and acquaintances, receiving bonuses for this, just like in classic pyramids.
Groups, especially the RA CLAN, even held meetings in restaurants, held prize draws, and discussed bidding.
— The atmosphere in the groups resembled a sect: the leaders asked to put likes under the posts, iPhone sweepstakes were held, joint meetings were held — it was all like online sales of some cosmetics, only instead of powder and lipstick, "earnings" were promoted, - recalls one of the victims.
But stability turned out to be illusory. In the spring of 2024, as explained by the foreign curators Danny and Alice, technical failures allegedly began on the platform. User balances sharply went into negative territory right during the "bidding".
— In a matter of seconds, instead of, for example, plus $2 thousand, my account became minus $400 thousand. We were told it was a glitch. The same Alice assured that she was also in the red," said one of the Hermesplat participants.
And then the platform started blocking the accounts of the participants altogether. Both Danny and Alice stated that to unlock, you need to make an additional 10% of the deposit amount and then the participants will be able to withdraw their money. This promise quickly turned into outright blackmail.: those who did not contribute lost everything. However, those who deposited the money did not receive anything either. As a result, at some point, the withdrawal option completely disappeared, and the application itself and the platform's website stopped working.
— As far as I know, this whole topic collapsed in Moscow in March, and then it began to collapse in other cities. In Irkutsk at the end of April, in Crimea almost a month later. It depended on how the participants withdrew or invested money. In other words, the organizers of Hermesplat considered a plus and a minus, and when they started withdrawing more in a certain group than they were depositing, then they collapsed it," recalls a Hermesplat trader from Irkutsk.
When it became clear that no one was going to return the money, the administrators of the Moscow groups Malynshchuk and Melikov began to accuse each other. Malinchuk began threatening Melikov with prison, and called on all participants to file a complaint against him with the Investigative Committee and the Interior Ministry. All these showdowns between former partners took place in a group dedicated to the Hermes scam.
The deceived traders teamed up, began their investigation and quickly found out that the money they deposited into their accounts in the application actually went to one particular crypto wallet and that in fact there were no trades on the exchange at all.
— Yes, it was all hand-drawn, all these auctions are fake. And the site is fake. There was really no bidding," says one of the victims.
Hermesplat's clients could be family members of Evgeny Giner
It is impossible to assess the extent of the damage caused by the activities of the Hermesplat crypto exchange and to name the exact number of victims: not all investors wrote statements to the police. However, the participants of the pyramid interviewed by Izvestia believe that we can talk about billions of rubles.
At the same time, not only ordinary investors were among the victims. According to Izvestia's sources, family members and associates of businessman, president of the CSKA football club Evgeny Giner and his son Vadim participated in the investment. According to the documents at the disposal of the editorial office, Vadim Giner's closest relatives deposited more than $1.7 million into their Hermesplat accounts, and only $3 thousand could be withdrawn before the collapse.
President of the Moscow PFC CSKA Evgeny Giner
In total, about 20 people joined the Hermesplat platform via invitation links through the giner@... mailbox (the full address is available to the editorial staff). They invested about $17.1 million (more than 1.3 billion rubles at the current exchange rate), but were able to withdraw only $874 thousand. Thus, their total damage from the exchange's activities amounted to about $16.2 million, or 1.27 billion rubles at the current exchange rate.
In a conversation with Izvestia, Artur Melikov stated that he did not know if Giner was trading on the platform, but added that "this is Roman [Malinchuk's] entourage."
Izvestia's sources say that Malynshchuk was brought together with Vadim Giner by his former common-law wife, jeweler Anastasia Yanbukhtina.
— They (the Gineers. — Izvestia) the application to the Department of Internal Affairs for the Central Administrative District of Moscow has been written, I spoke with Vadik personally," the source said. — The only thing is, I do not know what kind of testimony he gave. And so, yes, he is also among the victims," the source added.
Roman Malinshchuk himself did not answer questions about Giner in a short correspondence with a correspondent of Izvestia.
"All the questions about this exchange are for Melikov Artur — he brought it, and ask Giner the questions yourself," he said.
It is not known whether it was Malinchuk who invited Vadim Giner to the platform, but since the end of February, the son of the CSKA president has been trying to recover a certain amount from the convicted financier under the loan agreement through the court. It is also unknown what this amount is and what Malynshchuk took the money for. The hearing is scheduled for August in the Basmanny Court of Moscow.
Izvestia sent questions to Vadim Giner by email and in private messages to the messenger. He read the message, but did not answer any questions at the time of publication.
Roman Malinchuk also had women in his orbit who trusted him with literally everything. They helped him with money and connections, and often took out loans to invest in his projects. In 2020, his friend Tatiana Koroleva transferred all her savings to him and issued million-dollar loans from four banks, but she never returned the investment.
— In 2020, I trusted Roman, believed in his promises, and invested all my savings, as well as millions of loans from four banks. Afterwards, he just tricked me. I spent four years in debt hell, listening to his endless promises, lies, and threats. I was silent for a long time, hoping and waiting like a woman. Now I don't have the strength anymore, and if something happens, I want my story to be heard," Tatiana Koroleva said in her video message.
In 2023, the media reported that Malinchuk had beaten his common—law wife, Anastasia Yanbukhtina, the one who, according to Izvestia, introduced him to Giner.
Vadim Giner
Now another friend of his, Maria Savelieva, has also written statements against Malinchuk, claiming that the financier fraudulently took over her BMW car and stole a dress, which he later presented to his daughter.
In a conversation on Telegram with Izvestia journalists, Malinchuk stated that these women ordered his murder through killers.
"As for women, I have enough material about these women, what each of them represents. Yanbukhtina is a smuggler, Savelieva was paid — find out for yourself, I think it's not a secret. There is also enough compromising material on the rest," he wrote.
However, he never sent the promised compromising evidence, as well as evidence that anyone had ordered his murder. At first, he also agreed to a meeting with Izvestia journalists, but then he stopped contacting them.
Who is behind Hermesplat
Officially, the legal entity of the Hermesplat exchange was registered in June 2023 in Colorado (USA), and the domain was registered in China. But the actual owners of the company are still unknown.
Roman Malinchuk's own mother lives in California, and he had his own company there, which he later liquidated. Artur Melikov, as can be seen from the available correspondence, found out about the exchange in September of the same year 2023 — just a few months after its registration.
In a conversation with Izvestia, Melikov said that an Internet acquaintance named Felicia told him about the site. According to him, it was she who first invited him to participate in a new project, threw off her passport allegedly to confirm her identity and explained the details of the "work." As proof, Arthur provided Izvestia with his correspondence with Felicia, but it is impossible to understand what they were talking about from it: the messages of the interlocutor were unavailable.
Fake passport of "Felicia"
However, an analysis conducted by Izvestia showed that the photo of Felicia's "Spanish passport" does not depict an unknown crypto trader at all, but a model from Belarus named Elvira Rudavskaya. The girl lives in Barcelona, regularly takes part in photo shoots, and the passport itself is a fake, which was drawn based on document samples from the Internet.
A correspondent for Izvestia sent Rudavskaya a personal messenger message asking how her photo could have ended up on a fake Spanish passport. Rudavskaya read the questions and blocked the sender.
Those affected by the pyramid's activities are sure that "Felicia" is the very curator of "Alice" who sent trading instructions to regional groups. There are also questions about the identity of the second curator, "Danny." There are a number of indirect signs that both of these "foreigners" could actually be the Russian organizers of the scheme. For example, when communicating in English, Alice and Danny made constant mistakes and used constructions that were unusual for native speakers. Moreover, the style of Danny's messages is very similar to Malinchuk's English speech (his voice messages in chat rooms are available to Izvestia).
In addition, Izvestia had at its disposal an audio recording in which a man with a voice similar to Roman Malinchuk's says: "I missed another criminal case. I'm doing crypto, I'm doing business. If you want, I can attract you if you want to trade with me. My signal has been worked out, the right signal is that you will earn 100% per month."
However, in correspondence with Izvestia, Malinchuk insisted that it was Melikov who attracted him to the exchange's project, and he had nothing to do with its organization.
Law enforcement officers will now have to figure out who was really behind the real organizers of Hermes. Dozens of applications from defrauded investors have already been submitted in different regions of the country.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
