On November 1, the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg found the director and three coaches of the "Escada Asset Management Business School" guilty of fraud, who had stolen over 55 million rubles from citizens. This was reported by "Kommersant."
According to case materials, the organization operated from January 2019 to April 2020. Robert Aloyan was the CEO, while Revaz Burduli, Akob Tovmasyan, and Nikolay Volokitin acted as financial analysts. Under the guise of providing consulting services, they promised the victims to teach them strategies and the use of services for trading on a cryptocurrency exchange.
"Escada" rented offices in the city center and conducted aggressive advertising, including through a call center. Potential clients were found through databases on job search websites. They were promised high returns from investing in brokerage platforms and were also encouraged to sign up for paid courses.
If a client did not have enough funds, they were advised to take a loan from controlled microfinance organizations. In reality, no asset trading took place.
The victims of the "business school" were 45 citizens who invested over 55 million rubles. The activities of "Escada" were terminated in the spring of 2020.
Aloyan and Burduli were sentenced to seven years in a general-regime colony, Tovmasyan for one month less, and Volokitin received a three-year suspended sentence. All four pleaded guilty. According to the prosecutor's office, this is the first conviction of fake brokers in Russia.