The regulator discovered the maximum number of financial pyramids in the Russian market

The Central Bank analyzed the market over the past year and identified a record number of companies that fit the description of financial pyramids. Valeriy Lyakh, director of the department for combating illegal activities of the Central Bank, said that their number reached 237.

Compared to 2018, this rate is 1.4 times bigger. In the year before last, 168 financial pyramids were discovered that operated under the guise of Internet projects (55 companies), consumer cooperatives (60 companies) and limited liability organizations (88 companies).

The Central Bank has been identifying financial pyramids for the past five years, and this is the maximum number of fraudulent organizations during this time. As a rule, the activity of fraudsters increases towards the end of the year, as the load on the financial sector grows in the pre-holiday period, and besides, many people receive bonuses. By the second quarter, their activity is declining. In most cases, financial pyramids attract funds for investments in digital currencies, which are being prepared for the release by Telegram and Facebook. They also offer to invest in construction and agricultural industries.

Valeriy Lyakh said that to identify financial pyramids, the Central Bank created a bot that, under the guise of an ordinary person, studies the investment market to find much more profitable investments. The representative of the regulator clarified that despite the greater number of fraudulent organizations, their scale has significantly decreased.