The BitOK service team has identified key addresses associated with the activities of Valeria Fedyakina, known under the nickname Bitmama, accused of cryptocurrency fraud, and her accomplices. Representatives of the company informed ForkLog about this.
According to their information, one of the addresses belonging to Fedyakina stopped carrying out transactions on September 17. The majority of counterparties to transactions on it are deposit addresses of exchangers, as well as addresses belonging to the Garantex exchange.
From the second wallet, in the period from September 13 to 17, all funds in the amount of $12.2 million were withdrawn to two third-party addresses (1, 2).
The total volume of funds passed through these two addresses amounted to $139 million, according to experts.
Subsequently, the coins continued to be crushed. As a result, some of them ended up in small amounts on the deposit addresses of cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, Bybit and HTX (formerly Huobi).
The rest, having gone through a chain of transactions using cryptocurrency mixers, ended up at an address that belongs to an unidentified service.
According to analysts, about 20% of the total assets received in Fedyakina’s wallets are associated with the Russian crypto exchange Garantex.
Earlier, the Baza Telegram channel reported that Bitmama was arrested in Moscow for defrauding a client of 6.7 billion rubles.
Fedyakina collaborated with exchangers: she received cash from them and promised to withdraw the money in another country with an additional payment, despite the fact that they usually charge a commission for such operations. She explained this by connections with large businessmen and state corporations.
However, in September, Bitmama stopped communicating. A little earlier, clients encountered delays in payments.
According to Baza, on September 15, Fedyakina was detained in Moscow due to a suspicious transaction. She received 6.7 billion rubles in cash from an acquaintance and promised to exchange them for cryptocurrency with an additional payment of 1%. Later, the client realized that he would not see the money and contacted the police.
Fedyakina, who is six months pregnant, has been charged with major fraud. She faces up to ten years in prison. Due to having a residence permit in the UAE, the court placed her under arrest.
According to Indefibank CEO Sergei Mendeleev, Fedyakin is in pre-trial detention center-6 Pechatniki.
Blogger Mikhail Zhukhovitsky was the first to publish information that Bitmama “threw the market of shadow exchangers for $150 million.”
In a comment to ForkLog, he said that among the victims were “hundreds of small” companies, “but there are also large ones with checks of 20 million rubles.”
Let us recall that in July, Russian media reported the Ministry of Finance’s plans to ban the organization of cryptocurrency circulation, with the exception of stablecoins and the sale of coins to miners.
According to their information, we are talking about preventing the organization of services that help to carry out civil transactions or operations to transfer digital currencies from one owner to another through Russian exchangers and crypto ATMs.
Found an error in the text? Select it and press CTRL+ENTER
ForkLog newsletters: keep your finger on the pulse of the Bitcoin industry!