Friday, 19 July 2024 11:42

Match systems scam (aka Plain chain) Featured

How a former FSB analyst and a former drug cop are “divorcing” crypto victims.

In this article, Rucriminal.info will reveal who is behind Match systems (aka Plain chai). 

So, Match systems, aka Plain chain, position themselves as blockchain investigators, that is, people who help search for wallets and transactional links between them in various blockchains using various software. The main service that brings them money is the return of stolen money for %. The amount of remuneration varies from 5 to 50% and depends on the amount of theft, the complexity of the case and the resources involved. Often, Match systems representatives take an advance payment of about 10% of the amount. By the way, they never return the advance payment, citing "we did what we could, here is a certificate of movement of funds." And this, by the way, is Scam number 1. Such cases are every third for blockchain analysts from Match systems, and the advance payment amounts vary from $ 1,500 to $ 5,000. Usually, victims easily part with such amounts in exchange for the hope of getting at least something back. But this is just the beginning ...

According to a source of Rucriminal.info, having received a request for an investigation and refund, Match systems employees create a certain chat in Telegram, assigning it a serial number (there are now more than 600 of them, which means more than 600 potential scams under Scam 1 or Scam 2 below). The chat offers to fill out a questionnaire of the following type:

1. Telegram of the contact person (link to profile)

2. Approximate amount of damage (in dollars)

3. Date of the incident start

4. Incident end date

5. Address(es) of the wallet(s) from which the theft occurred

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6. Hashes of transactions through which the theft occurred (if any)

7. The attacker’s wallet addresses (if any)

8. Description of the situation (in as much detail as possible)

9. Information about the attacker (if any)

10. The place (city, country) where the theft occurred

11. The place (city, country) where the injured person permanently/temporarily resides (or resided at the time of the incident)

12. What is the desired outcome (criminal prosecution, refund, other)

13. Additional materials on the case (correspondence, screenshots, documents, etc.)

Now comes the fun part. The most ordinary blockchain analysts on a salary of $1,500-2,000 + % of the return amount, having in their arsenal the answers to the questions from the questionnaire above, sit down and manually trace the route of the stolen crypto. Along the route, there may be mixers, bridges, swaps, anything, but what is important to us is something else - where the attacker wants to "cash out". So, if the funds end up on any exchange, and this is most often what happens, they can be arrested there and then written off in favor of the victim. Moreover, often, the stolen assets can end up on the exchange not from the original attackers, but from third innocent parties. But this will no longer be important in the scheme. What happens next? Pure magic from the masters of forgery.

Attention, the real horror begins. So, having “extensive experience in law enforcement work” (more about this separately), Match systems employees send a resolution on the seizure of digital assets (sometimes, cryptocurrencies or digital currencies) as part of an inspection or as part of an initiated criminal case, or even a court decision.

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Match systems scam (aka Plain chain) uriqzeiqqiuhkmp tqiqthidekithvls

An example of a court decision on the seizure of cryptocurrencies

"So what?", you ask, "it’s a document and everything is legal." And indeed, the said document is the basis for at least freezing the account and then sorting it out further. If, for example, the account is associated with an intruder, then it is stupid to argue here and the injured client will get his money or at least part of it. Well, if it is not associated, then you can’t argue with the document and the exchange believes the documents, not the users. As practice shows, Match systems don’t care and they (extort) demand their client’s money in order to get % faster. It is extremely difficult to obtain such a judicial or law enforcement document within the framework of a real court case. Based on experience, it will take at least 3 months, and this is despite the fact that Russian courts and law enforcement agencies do not treat this topic very well.

And so, someone from Match systems brings such papers in just 1-2 WEEKS, after they understand that the money is on this or that exchange. We are smoothly approaching Scam number 2 - FORGERY or, simply put, COUNTERFEIT. Here, a large variability of such forgeries comes into play, since there are always real people behind the documents in any structure and you can’t do this without accomplices. This is what law enforcement officers did, now the founders of Match systems together with the current ones. Sometimes, when the situation does not require real signatures and names, Match systems simply takes and forges court documents. By the way, many such documents end up on the Garantex, Huobi and Binance exchanges, etc.

By the way, one of these werewolves, whose name was regularly used to sign Matchsystems documents, was detained. Investigator Antonina Shakina from Moscow is accused of falsifying a court decision to freeze an account on the Garantex crypto exchange. She shared the money from it — several million rubles — with Match systems. The founders and authors of the scheme are now carefully trying to hide their participation in the case, hiding behind employees of the Garantex exchange and the detained investigator, whom they skillfully set up, knowing about her pregnancy.

Alleged accomplice of Match Systems, investigator Antonina Shakina.

Alleged accomplice of Match Systems, investigator Antonina Shakina.

According to a source at Rucriminal.info, what the founders and employees of Matchsystems are doing is a serious criminal offense that harms innocent people for the benefit of the commercial interests of former and current werewolves in uniform. 

The Match systems website also has many services related to their developments, which they are actively trying to promote in the former USSR, but without much success. Let’s consider what these services are. First of all, to get a demo of the transaction monitoring product, you need to wait longer than they create fake documents for exchanges, but that’s not the point. The product cannot be used for real work, it contains outdated databases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB of the Russian Federation, and the analysts themselves use paid versions of software from Crystal and Chainalysis for investigations.

Match systems scam (aka Plain chain)

ABC-Control database is nothing more than illegally obtained databases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, as well as purchased databases of dirty addresses from the Darknet. Crystal is data that MatchSystems itself pays for and has no right to resell this data in this format.

Match systems earn money exclusively on pseudo-detective and investigative activities. It seems that Match systems understand that the topic of document forgery is not eternal and you can try to play a startup. Scam number 3 - "look investors, we have revenue (received from Scam 1 and Scam 2) and our own software (in reality, it does not work and is disguised as someone else’s solutions, as well as unauthorized databases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Investigative Committee, FSB of the Russian Federation), please give us money." By the way, it was for Scam number 3 that a separate company Match systems was created in Singapore with an office in Dubai, while all employees actually continue to be in Moscow and work in Plain chain, which they originally were, trying to sell their services to Russian banks and government agencies. The CEO of the LLC in the Russian Federation is nominal, here is  an extract   . In addition, there is  a company in Kazakhstan , in which the CEO is already one of the founders - Kutyin.

Having a complicated background, incompatible with venture investments, Match systems fictitiously split up to hide the founders’ connection with Russian law enforcement agencies. If funds suddenly read this, then Scam 1 + Scam 2 + Scam 3 = a bold "RED FLAG".

And finally, who are they, the werewolves in uniform who decided to get rich on the imperfections of cryptocurrency compliance systems, the oversight (or collusion) of exchanges and attract investors’ money for this, telling tales about a successful software startup "from Singapore".

Founders

 Match systems scam (aka Plain chain)

1 Dorzhinov Ice Nikolaevich

former analyst of the Internet Security Center of the FSB of the Russian Federation

lives in Dubai, UAE

Co-founder of Match systems, responsible for analytics and investigations, "borrowed" databases of tagged addresses after leaving the FSB

2 Kutin (also Kutin) Andrey Olegovich

Match systems scam (aka Plain chain)

lives in Dubai, UAE

former operative of the Main Directorate for Drug Control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation

CEO Match systems

actively travels and attends crypto and security events on behalf of the company, and is married to the daughter of a former high-ranking official associated with the oil business.

 Match systems scam (aka Plain chain)

3. Georgy Rakhaev

advocate 

Moscow city, Federation tower, office 4207

co-founder and investor in Match systems, effectively providing "legalization" and contacts with werewolves in uniform

active lawyer of the Moscow Region Bar Association 50/9246 (this investigation was sent to the Bar Association for a petition to revoke the license)

creator of fraudulent  law firm collecting orders for Match systems

4. Novel

Director of Development and Sales

Moscow and Dubai

Most of the employees and founders have direct ties to the Russian law enforcement agencies. All the schemes and data come from there. Databases of "dirty" addresses are "merged" illegally. 

To be continued