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Cryptopay and Freewallet are two of the biggest fraudulent projects on the cryptocurrency market. And as it turned out, the same people are behind both services. Today we'll tell you about the owners of the two most high-profile cryptocurrency scams of 2023.
Dmitry Gunyashov
The leader and organiser of the fraudulent project Freewallet. A cunning but clever scammer. This is how Dmitry Gunyashov can be described. This person is also involved in other criminal schemes, including the rather successful CRYPTOPAY payment system.
Dmitry Andreyevich Gunyashov was born in 1988 in St. Petersburg. According to childhood friends, the guy grew up very capable and was favourably characterised at school. Gunyashov received 2 higher educations, specialising as a philologist (Chinese language) and a financier.
In 2010, 22-year-old Gunyashov decided to try himself in entrepreneurship. Dmitry founded Trianda, a firm engaged in intermediation in property transactions. Gunyashov hoped to earn money as a broker, but he could not succeed in this area.
A few months later, Dmitry founded another company, Makwise Ltd. This firm was engaged in electronics trading, but Gunyashov was also unable to sell gadgets. In the end, both projects hung in the status of "frozen" until liquidation in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Much better, Gunyashov learnt how to scam people out of money using cryptocurrency services.
Cryptopay and Freewallet: two scams of the same owner
In 2013, Dmitry founded a project called Cryptopay. At that time, the general public did not yet know about cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and the first altcoins were used by two categories of users: members of darknet communities and people who knew IT. Since there were few crypto-investors in Russia, Gunyashov decided to start a company with an eye on the European market. This is how the Cryptopay wallet and eventually the Cryptopay payment gateway came into being.
But as competition on the crypto market was growing, Gunyashov realised that it was much more profitable to earn money by cheating clients. Therefore, users of Cryptopay wallet began to notice failures in the system more and more often. At first, some users began to lose transactions. And later, under the guise of "combating dirty money laundering", the administration organised a mass blocking of accounts. Even those who sent a full set of documents, selfies, and video recordings for verification were unable to pass verification.
Dmitry Gunyashov: contacts and affiliations
From open sources we managed to find out such information about Gunyashov's alleged contacts and connections.
Registered address:
194354, SANKT PETERSBURG CITY, ENGELSA PROSPECT, 111, 1, 516
Address of actual residence :
Lisbon (Portugal), formerly London (UK)
+79219965549
Social media pages and accounts:
https://www.facebook.com/dm...
https://www.instagram.com/d...
Vasily Meshcheryakov
Vasily Vyacheslavovich Meshcheryakov is less well known than Gunyashov. This guy is hardly the leader of the group, rather he is Freewallet's "right hand" and head of the PR department.
But Meshcheryakov's activities are very diverse. He is not only a successful swindler, but also a real treasury thief, taking money from the budget.
What is known about Meshcheryakov
Vasily Vyacheslavovich Meshcheryakov was born on 27 February 1984 in (at that time) Leningrad. The boy grew up very capable: childhood friends described Vasya to us as a diligent student and a pleasant person in communication, but prone to deceit. Meshcheryakov could have become a talented programmer or IT project manager. But he chose a slightly less legitimate way to make money.
Most likely, Meshcheryakov found himself in the Freewallet team at the moment of its creation. Vasily and his wife Natalia Ogneva are well versed in marketing and are able to build an attractive advertising campaign for clients. This is the reason why Freewallet, a blatantly fraudulent wallet, has managed to find new victims for 8 years already.
Vasily Meshcheryakov: contacts and links
According to our data, the main publicist of Freewallet wallet lives in Russia. Unlike Gunyashov, he has not travelled to other countries for a long time. But this is by no means connected with some kind of patriotism. It's just that Meshcheryakov chose a different way of avoiding responsibility for fraud than Dmitry.
We managed to find such information about the current whereabouts and contacts of Vasily Meshcheryakov:
Registered address:
ST. PETERSBURG, ST. SAVUSHKINA, 125, bldg. 2, kv. 119
+79319693585
Other phones (may be outdated):
+79217772599, +79117116504, +79139661744
[email protected], [email protected]
Current place of residence:
Presumably at the place of registration
We hope that this information will help law enforcers to investigate the crimes committed by Gunyashov, Meshcheryakov and his associates. There is no doubt that both Cryptopay and Freewallet are fraudulent sites that work according to the same scheme. It is possible that they are involved in other projects as well.
