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In Krasnodar, a sentence has come into force for accountant Karen Arzumanyan, who stole more than 1 million rubles from a resident of Yoshkar-Ola, posing as a consultant on transactions with the USDT cryptocurrency on the MetaTrader5 platform. The attacker offered the victim to earn money by buying and selling digital currency and regularly demonstrated her supposedly replenished account. In fact, Karen Arzumanyan appropriated the client's funds by presenting her with a demo version of the program, which does not work in real transactions. The defendant repented, compensated for the damage and received a suspended sentence.
The Pervomaisky District Court of Krasnodar found accountant Karen Arzumanyan guilty of committing especially large-scale fraud (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); the verdict was not appealed and entered into force (the materials were published in the court's file). The court found that between November and December 2022, the defendant embezzled funds from a resident of Yoshkar-Ola in the total amount of 1.05 million rubles, promising her earnings from transactions with the USDT cryptocurrency on the MetaTrader5 platform.
The victim told the court that in October 2022, she received a call from an unknown number offering free distance learning in financial literacy at the Expert educational center. The girl listened to several lectures on investing in digital currency and simultaneously opened a crypto wallet on the Binance exchange. During the training, transactions took place with virtual funds, but after a short time, consultant Artem contacted the girl and said that she had the opportunity to invest real money and earn income through USDT currency purchase and sale transactions.
The victim, who did not have enough funds, took out a loan from the bank and began purchasing cryptocurrency on the Binance exchange.
The consultant told the girl that he allegedly opened a new crypto wallet in her name on the MetaTrader5 platform with a robot program, where the currency should be transferred to make transactions. For two months, Artem showed the client an increase in the amount in her crypto wallet, and then said that she allegedly won a large amount, which could be withdrawn from the account by paying a small commission. After the client transferred funds to receive the winnings, consultant Artem stopped communicating, and the girl contacted the police. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Mari El established the identity of "Artem" and in June 2023, detained him in Krasnodar. The organizer of the fraud was local resident Karen Arzumanyan.
During the investigation, it was revealed that Karen Arzumanyan had developed a scheme to steal funds under the guise of cryptocurrency transactions while working at the Expert educational center, where he taught clients to trade on global financial markets. Karen Arzumanyan himself had no experience in this area; his task was to sell a robot program for working on the MetaTrader5 platform. When communicating with clients, Karen Arzumanyan realized that many of them had no idea about working with cryptocurrency and could easily believe any scheme offered to them.
In particular, the attackers showed Yoshkar-Ola’s clients data from a demo version of the robot that does not work with real money, and what she assumed was a new cryptocurrency wallet on the Meta Trader 5 platform turned out to be Karen Arzumanyan’s wallet, which is where the victim’s funds went.
Karen Arzumanyan pleaded guilty, repented and paid compensation to the victim. Taking these circumstances into account, the court sentenced him to three years in prison.