Russian Sergey Mayzus is a notorious entrepreneur in high-risk payment and online trading. He founded the now CySEC-regulated broker InstaForex in Russia in 2007, which has had many regulatory problems. The UK FCA revoked his Mayzus Financial Services Ltd license as a payment processor in 2018. Mazyos was allegedly involved in Alexander Vinnik‘s Russian collapsed crypto exchange BTC-e as a payment processor. Mayzus seems to have legal issues in the Czech Republic.
The Crypto Troubles
The e-BTC case: In 2020, a French judge sentenced Alexander Vinnik, the founder of the now-defunct BTC-e crypto exchange, to five years in prison and a fine of €100,000 for laundering funds for cybercriminals. In August 2022, a U.S. indictment charged BTC-e and Vinnik with money laundering and engaging in unlawful monetary transactions. Mayzus Financial Services and OKPAY, two payment ventures of Sergey Mayzus, have processed payments for e-BTC. A Cypriot court later found that Mayzus and his companies had been deceived and harmed by BTC-e and its operators.
An OCCRP report published in 2020 revealed that Mayzus Financial Services Ltd d/b/a MoneyPolo, an online money transfer service owned by Sergey Mayzus, was frequently utilized for transactions with the Bitcoin exchange platform BTC-e. This platform faced its downfall 2017, when U.S. authorities accused it of being a significant conduit for money laundering.
The FinCEN files revealed that MoneyPolo had been flagged for suspicious business activities to U.S. authorities as early as 2010. MoneyPolo is the most frequently mentioned entity in the over 2,100 leaked Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). U.S. prosecutors claim that global criminals utilized BTC-e to convert traditional currencies into Bitcoins, facilitating the laundering of approximately $4 billion from illegal sources. Allegedly, MoneyPolo played a pivotal role in assisting BTC-e in processing bank transactions via Czech bank accounts.
Deutsche Bank’s Americas division, as highlighted in the FinCEN files, discovered that over $250 million was transferred through accounts associated with Mayzus’ firms from January 2010 to July 2013. By 2016, an analysis by Investigace.cz indicated that a minimum of $500 million, channeled through Czech bank accounts connected to Mayzus, had been marked as suspicious and reported to U.S. officials.
Investigace.cz analyzed hundreds of pages of thirty-five similar announcements related to Majzus’ companies. We found that at least 500 million dollars (more than 13 billion crowns) flowed through their Czech accounts between 2010 and 2016, which were evaluated as suspicious. For example, one of these companies, MFS and its corporate predecessors, used the accounts of Česká spořitelna, ČSOB, Komerční banka, Raiffeisenbank, GE Money Bank or Deutsche Bank.
Investigate.cz report (translated via Google)
The Resulting Czech Problems
The findings of the FinCEN File may have resulted in Mayzus no longer being a wanted person in the Czech Republic. According to a Prague Monitor report, Sergey Mayzus, known in the Czech Republic for breeding livestock, brewing beer, and owning castles, and agricultural companies, faces potential expulsion from the country. The Interior Ministry’s Commission for Decision-Making on the Residence of Foreigners initially declined to renew his residence permit. Following this, Mayzus’s subsequent lawsuit challenging the decision was dismissed by the Regional Court in České Budějovice.
Not In The Country’s Best Interest
The court’s decision was influenced by police reports suggesting Mayzus’s associations with individuals involved in organized crime within the Czech Republic. The judge, Tereza Kučerová, stated that classified information confirmed that Mayzus’s continued residence in the Czech Republic was not in the country’s best interest.
It remains uncertain whether Mayzus will pursue further legal action or if he is still in the Czech Republic. The Commission provided evidence to the court indicating Mayzus’s potential involvement in serious criminal activities linked to organized crime.
Mayzus Can Manage His Business From Everywhere
In his lawsuit, Mayzus claimed that the Czech authorities violated his rights, emphasizing his family’s long-standing residence and the potential risks he might face upon returning to Russia, including political persecution or conscription into the Ukraine conflict. However, the court dismissed these concerns as speculative. Judge Kučerová noted that Mayzus has the freedom to reside in any safe country and can manage his business from any location.
Before the decision against extending his stay, Mayzus transferred his property holdings to his wife. While he no longer owns any assets directly, his wife possesses significant properties, including two castles and various real estate holdings near Prague. Previously, Mayzus had indirect ownership of aviation assets in the Czech Republic, but he has since divested from these, transferring ownership to the Prague-based law firm Vych & Partners.
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