The wish to invest a small amount of money in a project and make a lot without doing anything is a very old desire. This desire was used in the fairy tale “The Golden Key” by suggesting Pinocchio to bury five gold pieces in the Field of Wonders in the Land of Fools. Many people are aware of the project by Sergei Mavrodi.
Surprisingly, the number of people interested in easy money does not decrease, as well as the number of followers of Lisa Alice and Sergei Mavrodi. They are involved in the cryptocurrency market, which many ordinary citizens do not understand, but they firmly believe it is worth purchasing some cryptocurrency for a hundred dollars and doing nothing because it will bring millions in profits.
The scammers in the cryptocurrency market aim to attract as many customers as possible and sell them worthless electronic currency, convincing them that it is a highly profitable product that can bring huge returns, similar to the activities of MMM.
The creators of the “cryptocurrency exchange” PointPay operated by gaining the trust of the client and obtaining money from them. The project, initially not an exchange, positioned itself as a “cryptocurrency bank” that offered various services similar to those provided by a traditional bank: deposits, currency exchange, trading, loans, etc. The project started in 2018 and collected investors’ money for several years.
The project successfully raised over $50 million, but PXP tokens, in which the investors put their money with the expectation of high profits, decreased in value, which was unexpected for the investors.
The exchange’s token is now valued at just under two cents, 87.05% below its all-time high of $0.15.
Those who invested in cryptocurrency bought PXP tokens at a value of 15 cents, considering that Bitcoin also once cost about the same. Now, the PXP token is worth just under two cents.
However, the main idea of how much they swindled a person – by 15 cents or 15 thousand dollars – remains the same. The project was originally designed for deceit, not for operating like other crypto exchanges. Its sole purpose was to gather as much money as possible and then vanish.
According to sources within PointPay, once the number of investors reached 70,000 and the company held $50 million, the project changed. The leadership was replaced, and the founder, Ilya Zavyalov, disappeared. Panic among investors led to reports blaming the CEO, Andrey Svyatov, who had been with the company from the start, for the project's failure. Allegedly, he withdrew the money, but Zavyalov was not involved.
Subsequently, there were reports deflecting blame from Svyatov and placing it all on Zavyalov. The situation is complex.
After reviewing all the available material (which quickly disappears from public access – indicating systematic removal from the internet), we conclude that Ilya Zavyalov was unquestionably the mastermind of the scam. However, Andrei Svyatov also played a role – at a technical level. It turned into a classic scenario – one scammer (Zavyalov) double-crossed another (Svyatov). Svyatov claimed he was promised 10% of tokens for his work, which Zavyalov did not deliver, although the tokens were worthless. Classic greed. In retaliation, Svyatov decided to expose everything he knew and distance himself from the fraudulent scheme.
But his knowledge was limited. Still, he recognized that the PointPay project was originally a notorious scam. Yet, he was involved in it. His primary responsibility was to attract investors, and the 70,000 people who invested in PointPay were solely due to Svyatov's efforts. When the project collapsed, Svyatov and his brother Alexander, both PointPay employees, attempted to negotiate compensation from Zavyalov in exchange for silence. However, Zavyalov had moved to the US and changed his phone numbers. Svyatov then disappeared for a month, seeking Zavyalov and evading creditors and the unpaid PointPay team he had hired.
Unable to locate Zavyalov and facing inevitable involvement with law enforcement, Svyatov disavowed his participation in the scam and claimed he had also been deceived. He tried to deflect blame onto Ilya Zavyalov.
Little is known about either of them – neither sought the limelight. This supports the belief that PointPay was originally a fraudulent project – a legitimate crypto exchange needs publicity and transparency, crucial for attracting clients.
It's quite odd that their photos are hard to find, especially for Svyatov.
But it's even harder to find pictures of Zavyalov – only one suitable photo for identification is available.
Ilya Zavyalov's photo was kept on the Ivanovo Power Engineering University website, where he was invited as an honored guest in 2018 as a graduate.
Remember how Ostap Bender exclaimed, 'Remove the photographer, he disrupts my chess thinking.' Why leave your image if you know many people will be looking for you again?
There's no available biography for Andrey Svyatov – he suddenly appears as the CEO of the PointPay project. There are promotional articles about PointPay on the internet, but he's already the CEO, indicating that he knew what he was doing under Ilya Zavyalov's leadership.
Little is known about the scam organizer. Ilya Nikolaevich Zavyalov, born on June 12, 1979 in Ivanovo, is the most information available about him.
He graduated from the Ivanovo State Power Engineering University in 2001. According to the official biography, from 2003 to 2016, he was in charge of foreign IT and financial and technical companies.
Currently, he leads the FedPay Joint Stock Company, which is involved in promoting and developing the ASODP software complex, FinTech services, consulting services for IT solutions compliance with legislation, AML compliance, risk management, financial calculations automation and standardization, and other RegTech services.
So, Mr. Zavyalov knows the subject well.
Svyatov, who was offended by Zavyalov, revealed more interesting information about him. It turns out that the seemingly clean Russian entrepreneur owns real estate in the USA, including two companies and a residential complex.
Additionally, he co-owned a questionable marriage office called Dream Marriage, involved in connecting women from post-Soviet countries with men from the USA, with his ex-wife.
It's worth noting that the FedPay joint-stock company ended last year with a loss of 55,000 rubles.
Another interesting detail is that a certain Mike Allen Brooks is a co-founder of FedPay JSC.
No information was found about who Brooks is, only that he's a US citizen. This raises the question – is Brooks involved in the PointPay scam, and if so, to what extent? But there's no information, so we won't speculate.
It's highly likely that Ilya Zavyalov didn't organize PointPay’s “crypto bank” alone. The Russian police stated that on March 22, they located and detained a suspect in embezzlement of funds and property of a cryptocurrency exchange after conducting operational-search measures with various agencies.
The police added that “the detainee is one of the actual owners of the online trading platform, where digital financial assets could be bought, sold or exchanged for real money. The attacker controlled the movement of large amounts in cryptocurrency and their transfer to electronic wallets. Taking advantage of his position, he withdrew part of the funds and appropriated them.
