The case materials state that the suspects conducted fictitious transactions with low-liquidity American securities among themselves over several months in 2022.
First, investors groundlessly lowered the price of the securities, and then increased it. In this way, they forced the W-Empirical Holding algorithm to sell them the securities at a lower price and buy them back at a higher price.
W-Empirical Holding acted as a market maker under an agreement with the broker Freedom Finance. The latter sold its financial assets in the Russian Federation in the fall of 2022, after which the company was renamed Tsifra Broker.
Of the 154.6 million rubles in illegal income received by the participants in the scheme, approximately 58.56 million rubles were withdrawn from accounts, and 96.05 million rubles were blocked by Freedom Finance due to the investigation that had begun.
The case was initiated under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group of persons), which provides for up to 10 years of imprisonment. Two people are named as defendants – Zinchenko V.I. and Kuleshov S.P.
Cover photo: Unsplash
Source: rb.ru
