The Israeli Jakub Keselman (or Yakov Keselman or Jacob Keselman) is the executive director of this Milton Group. Keselman describes himself as “Wolf of Kiev” on his Instagram profile. Like his Israeli compatriot Gal Barak, who was called the Wolf of Sofia, Keselman’s scheme allegedly targeted EU retail investors with his brands and boiler rooms. As a matter of fact, however, the wolves of Kiev and Sofia lived in different places and funneled the stolen money into offshore locations around the world. Allegedly, the Russian David Todua (aka David Todva), 38, is one of the beneficial owners of Milton Group. He is director of the Ukrainian company LLC Firma Spec-Trading, a shareholder of which is the former Georgian Secretary of Defence David Kezerashvili.
Allegedly, Todua controlled the scheme’s money flows through his Cypriot company NA Naspay Limited. FinTelegram already exposed this company and its executives (read the article here). The scheme’s beneficial owners and executives are closely connected with Georgia.
Another huge scheme operated by Israelis
According to a report of The Guardian, more than 200 fake “traders” were based in Milton Group‘s boiler room in Ukraine. They allegedly stole some $70m (£55m) from retail investors across the world in 2019. The Spanish El Confidencial reports that the scheme had more than 400 employees that worked in offices in the Mandarin Plaza in Kiev.
According to El Confidencial, the Milton Group scheme operated dozens of broker scams under different like Crypto Bull, Cryptobase, CryptoMB, Crypto Kartal or Finaxis are some of the dozens of trademarks that feed the monster, according to the complainant. The Milton Group operates through a network of boiler rooms in Ukraine, Albania, Georgia and North Macedonia.
The boiler room in Tirana, Albania, for example, is managed by Amant Josifi, an official adviser to the Albanian Defense Minister and partner in business with Prime Minister Edi Rama’s brother.
Kiev was also an attractive location for Gal Barak and its network. For example, the broker-scam Binex was operated there, which mainly attacked Russian small investors. The Ukrainian police smashed Binex 2018. At present, it is not clear whether and, if so, how the Milton Group is linked to other schemes and facilitating payment services like NA Naspay.
The power of whistleblower
Everything this company does is fake, their purpose is only to steal money from people.
Alexey, the whistleblower in the Milton Group Case
The operators of the scheme have taken the strictest security measures to monitor their employees. Despite this, one of the employees, a whistleblower, gave information to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, thereby exposing the scheme. The whistleblower provided secretly filmed footage, internal company documents, and testimony about its practices.
According to the intel, the Milton Group apparently operated a large number of different brands (broker scams with different domains) with which they attacked small investors via their boiler rooms. Similar to what the Wolf of Sofia, Gal Barak, did through his E&G Bulgaria (formerly E&G Finance) in Sofia.
An analysis of its social networks reveals that the Milton Group‘s broker scams had boiler rooms in the Ukraine, Macedonia, and Albania. In social media postings, the boiler room agents are pictured with high-end cars and luxury trips appear.
Denial of illegality
Keselman and Barak deny any illegality of their activities. Yes, they would have run call centers and IT support companies but that wouldn’t be illegal. But they would have nothing to do with the fraud on the retail investors by the agents of the call centers (aka boiler rooms).
Officially, these boiler rooms actually call themselves Business Process Outsourcers (BPO) or marketing companies. They would provide services on behalf of their customers. In fact, these customers – the various broker scams with their brands – are owned by these boiler room operators through offshore companies. Well hidden from the authorities and the aggrieved retail investors.
We continue our research, stay tuned!
