Unnoticed by justice, the gang of cyber fraudsters is not slowing down.
Analysts are sounding the alarm: since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the aggressor country, the level of fraud in Ukraine has been growing at an unprecedented pace . Last year was a record year – as many as 82,609 proceedings were opened under the “core” Article 190 of the Criminal Code.
As Ivan Chip writes in a review for the CRiME and [high-profile cases] , not all victims of crooks file statements with the police, so the real scale of fraud can be many times greater. At the same time, in 2022, damage from fraud on the Internet and using social engineering methods increased by 96% compared to the previous year and reached UAH 1 billion. Last year, 2023, it could reach UAH 2-3 billion.
Last summer, in our investigative article “Crypto Pyramids” in the Shadow of the President’s Office,” we analyzed in detail an organization code-named Danvel Group , consisting of two scammer companies – Danvel Ltd and Eternity Business . To give legality to the “projects,” they were registered as limited liability companies in British jurisdiction. The companies operated websites of the same name, purporting to be a “unique investment product” containing a “formula for financial success.” But in essence, these were financial “pyramids”, where the percentage of profitability depended on the size of the “investor’s” contribution and the number of new simpletons he brought.
Judging by public data, the scheme is headed by an inconspicuous businessman from Chernivtsi, Mikhail Romanenko (pictured above) , as well as his two partners from Dnieper, Nazar Babenko and Igor Kotov .
In 2022 and 20223, Danvel Ltd and Eternity Business actively promoted not only in the Ukrainian- and Russian-language segments of the Internet, but also in the English-language one. Moreover, the information campaign was based on emphasizing the indecently luxurious lifestyle of the defendants (Romanenko, Babenko and Kotov) with a strong hint to the audience about the opportunity to earn big money without much effort. For example, image publications claimed that Mikhail Romanenko made a fortune of $1.5 billion using cryptocurrencies (which, of course, was not confirmed in any way) and collected an impressive collection of supercars worth $10 million (which is also obvious nonsense).
At the time of publication of our investigation last year, specialized monitoring resources already considered the Danvel and Eternity Business projects “suspicious” and “potentially dangerous.” After the publicity, the swindlers began some reformatting of their “business”.
eternity.inc was registered , which is now being redirected from the eternity.business website, where the “pyramid” of the same name was originally built.
There is also a redirect from a dozen other sites dedicated to making easy money on the Internet.
On the main page of eternity.inc it is stated that this is a kind of community with free membership. “As a member of our global community, you'll gain access to real estate, financial solutions, financial tools, a financial literacy academy—and more,” it says.
The unlucky visitor is promised mountains of gold, but vaguely, without specifics. What exactly will their money be invested in? How? How it works?
The only thing that even remotely resembles specifics is “reliable real estate investments.”
more details among the “company news”, where Mikhail Romanenko persuaded “patients” to invest in luxury real estate in Dubai, claiming that he was a partner of the second largest developer in the UAE - the Nakheel company.
Hurry up to give $10 thousand to become part of one of the most impressive projects - it looks too much like a scam. One way or another, neither the Ukrainian citizen Mykhailo Romanenko nor any legal entity associated with him are publicly mentioned in Nakheel PJSC
However, if a visitor to the eternity.inc website succumbs to Romanenko’s promises and registers, he will immediately be taken to his “personal account”, where he will be persistently persuaded to replenish his “deposit wallet”. That is, to parting with money.
The author of these lines pretended to be a “sucker,” registered and pretended that he intended to throw a hundred dollars into infinity (after all, this is how the word “eternity” is translated from English) in order to see where and how the investors’ money went.
By the way, the opportunity to start financial transactions without identity verification (it seems to be available on eternity.inc, but the site did not require it from me) is one of the sure signs that no one is going to return the invested funds to you.
When trying to use “open banking”, I encountered a server error (more than once). And I concluded that it simply doesn’t work on this site.
But the SEPA bank transfer (fast transfers in euros) turned out to be quite workable - payment details were instantly generated.
As we can see, if the “investor” decides to part with his money in this way, then it will go to the account of Mandato Financial Services GmbH, opened in the Lithuanian bank Mano Bankas (we calculated using the SWIFT code KUSRLT24). But this does not mean that you are paying Mandato.
Mandato Financial Services, registered in Switzerland , is a financial company specializing in providing financial gateway services, banking, e-wallets and the like. That is, in the case of eternity.inc, the Mandato company opened an account in a Lithuanian bank in the interests of the beneficiaries of the site and makes payments to them. And forcing Swiss financiers, who are permanently surrounded by lawyers, to reveal the final recipient is a non-trivial task.
Well, in the case of a “cryptocurrency payment,” the money will go to an anonymous wallet, the owner of which you are unlikely to ever find.
By the way, we checked the movement of funds on BTC and ETH wallets used by the eternity.inc platform at the time of publication. There is no movement, zero. This could mean one of two things. Or Misha Romanenko’s “clientele” is so dense that they do not use cryptocurrencies. Or eternity.inc changes wallets after each transfer of gullible depositors, so that the compromised address does not “shine” in connection with the “office”.
Let's move on.
The "legal notice" on eternity.inc states that it is owned by Eternity Prime Limited; its CEO is Austrian citizen Roman Leithauser.
According to registration data , Eternity Prime Limited was founded in Hong Kong (PRC) in the form of a limited liability company on October 26, 2023. Although the names of the beneficiaries are hidden, the founder of the company, its CEO Roman Leithauser, calls the “Ukrainian billionaire and driving force” Mykhailo Romanenko.
Mikhail Romanenko seems to confirm this.
I wonder if Mikhail Romanenko himself understands that the features of a financial “pyramid” are clearly visible in the nonsense he talks about in the video:
“I want to create a community that gives its members access to the same opportunities that are typically only available to wealthy investors. But this is only possible if a truly large community is created. This again means that ordinary people will be able to access financial instruments that are usually only open to people with high net worth.”
Let us emphasize once again that a billionaire like Mikhail Romanenko is not included in any ranking of successful businessmen. He declares his one and a half billion dollars in bitcoins, which is easier to refute than to confirm: he is not on the lists of large BTC holders .
Back in September last year, we noticed that Eternity began to focus on “cultivating” the German-speaking audience. Judging by the YouTube channel eternity.inc, it is the Germans and Austrians who have been chosen as the main target of the crooks.
As a result, on December 19, 2023, the Austrian financial regulator issued a warning to investors against transactions with Eternity Prime Limited. “This provider is not authorized to carry out banking operations in Austria that require a license,” the regulator said in a statement.
A couple of weeks after the Austrians’ warning, on January 3 of this year, Mikhail Romanenko and Co. received a “red card” from the International Organization of Securities Commissions. It warns about possible fraudulent and manipulative actions on the part of Eternity Prime Limited.
Soon, Misha Romanenko’s “body movements” were reacted to in the “homeland” of the company Eternity Prime Limited. On January 12, Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) warned the public about suspicious investment products called "Eternity.inc forex packages" offered by Eternity Prime Limited.
“These products have not been authorized by the SFC to be offered to the Hong Kong public and are suspected of breaching the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO),” the regulator said in a statement.
SFC also noted that the products promise abnormally high annual returns of 36–84%. They also quite transparently hinted that “the SFC will take all necessary actions in case of violation of the law.”
Soon Mikhail Romanenko made a video appeal to the participants of the pyramid “members of the community”, trying to disavow the regulators’ claims. They say that we are not “selling” any financial products to anyone, but are only giving community members a free opportunity to invest in “the products of our partners” (in saying this, he is probably confident that neither the paper nor the digital trail of payments will lead to his gang). He said indignantly that here in Eternity we are all “Dartagnans”, and all around us are enemies, blackmailers and scammers. Separately, Mikhail Romanenko shamed lawyers who were ready to help “investors” get their money back from Romanenko.
In general, it didn’t turn out very convincing, but it was funny.
By the way, about funny things. In paragraph 6 of paragraph 1 of the “user agreement” with Eternity Prime Limited, it is stated in white English that minors, crazy people, as well as citizens of Ukraine and the United States cannot enter into an agreement with the “platform”.
Everything is clear with children and incapacitated citizens. But why is there such discrimination between Ukrainians and Americans? I'm reporting. If U.S. citizens are harmed by the Eternity scheme, it will be considered a crime committed within the United States. Several federal services will open a hunt for schemers at once, and their bank accounts will be tightly blocked.
As for Ukraine, they are probably guided by the rule “don’t crap where you live.” Mikhail Romanenko, like some of his accomplices, lives in Ukraine. As far as one can judge, the main office of Eternity.inc is located here, although its “target audience” is citizens of the European Union. Recently, on behalf of Eternity, a vacancy for “customer support manager” (read: call center manager) was posted on the Robota.ua service. A mandatory requirement is knowledge of German and English.
