On November 1, the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg convicted the leaders and trainers of the “Escada Asset Management Business School” for fraud, having deceived citizens out of over 55 million rubles, as reported by Kommersant.

The court established that from January 2019 to April 2020, under the guise of consulting services, Robert Aloyan (CEO) and his colleagues — Revas Burduli, Akob Tovmasyan, and Nikolai Volokitin — promised clients training in cryptocurrency exchange trading. Under the pretext of investment strategies, they offered paid courses and opportunities for high-yield investments, renting offices in the city center and conducting an active advertising campaign through a call center.

Clients were attracted through job search websites’ databases and promises of high returns on investments. If clients lacked funds, they were offered loans through affiliated microfinance organizations.

In reality, no cryptocurrency trading took place. “Escada’s” activities were halted in the spring of 2020, and 45 people fell victim to the fraud.

The court sentenced Aloyan and Burduli to seven years in a general-regime colony, Tovmasyan to six years and eleven months, and Volokitin to three years on probation. The criminals pleaded guilty. The prosecutor’s office noted that this is the first verdict in Russia regarding cryptocurrency fraud brokers.

It is worth mentioning that in October, a court in Moscow selected a preventive measure for three defendants in the case of a criminal organization related to the Cryptex cryptocurrency exchange and the UAPS anonymous payment system.