A current Blockchain Sports activities Ponzi promo occasion in Belarus has seen native media ask uncomfortable questions.
Supposedly on the root of Belarus’ authorities embracing crypto Ponzi fraud is Chinese language debt.
Again in October residents of Gomel, a metropolis in Belarus, woke to automobiles being “drifted” by drivers from Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Thailand and Brazil.
The promo was a advertising marketing campaign for Blockchain Sports activities, an MLM crypto Ponzi run by convicted fraudster Dmitriy Saksonov.
When BehindMLM first appeared into Blockchain Sports activities earlier this 12 months, Saksonov represented he was based mostly out of Brazil. Saksonov seems to have since relocated to the UAE.
Blockchain Sports activities initially launched in 2023. The unique Ponzi was constructed round SPORTS and FTBLL tokens.
After the primary Ponzi collapsed, an NFT grift reboot was launched as a part of the collapsed Daisy International Ponzi scheme.
With Daisy International collapsing for a 3rd and remaining time in December 2023, Saksonov and Blockchain Sports activities then got here up with an AI drifting advertising ruse round mid 2024.
BelTA, Belarus’ state-owned information company, is reported to have relentlessly pitched Blockchain Sports activities’ current advertising occasion to locals.
International pilots in skilled drift automobiles gather information for an AI-controlled automotive by conducting races on particular phases, and the perfect Belarusian drifters hospitably exhibit essentially the most picturesque locations within the nation.
A November seventeenth investigative report from Nasha Niva states these claims “don’t stand as much as criticism”.
If you happen to brush away the mud in your eyes, the outlines of one other murky story round Shanter Hill, Shakutin’s long-term development challenge close to Drozdy, seem.
Brushing apart drifting as a motor racing subculture with no mainstream enchantment, Hawa Hiba stories most of Blockchain Sports activities’ drivers “are minor figures whose names are absent from the match tables of great drift leagues”.
The automobiles utilized in Blockchain Sports activities’ occasion had been owned by three Belarusian drivers. Not one of the drifting “stars” Blockchain Sports activities’ touted appeared in any driving footage.
It’s not clear precisely how lengthy the visitors had been allowed to carry the steering wheel; they don’t seem within the video stories contained in the automobiles; they largely bow to the press.
BelTA printed comical pictures of the “visitor stars” sitting as extras and shaking their heads on the second ground of a vacationer bus, round which Belarusians are dancing.
And one of many Japanese admits that that is the primary time he has handled a left-hand drive drift automotive (in Japan, site visitors is on the left facet).
Supposedly Blockchain Sports activities’ occasion was held to assemble information to feed into an AI mannequin that will ultimately drift automobiles by itself.
As Nasha Niva factors out although, AI managed drifting was carried out efficiently 9 years in the past within the US.
In case it wasn’t apparent, Blockchain Sports activities’ “AI drifting” ruse isn’t presupposed to make sense. It’s a easy gateway to a “Drift Pool” fraudulent funding scheme.
On account of prior scamming, Dmitriy Saskanov was sentenced to 4 years in jail on the finish of 2018.
Upon launch Saskanov went proper again to scamming, this time via cryptocurrency.
Within the lead as much as Blockchain Sports activities’ Belarus advertising occasion;
In September 2024, Saksonov organized a joint photograph shoot with a pseudo-investment fund, claiming that he was being allotted three billion {dollars} allegedly in Saudi Arabia.
On the identical time, he despatched out “information” to Belarusian media that his firm X-Labs Inc. was being allotted (by whom – unknown) Shakutin’s unfinished Shanter Hill facility for superior IT developments.
The claims turned out, not surprisingly, to be bogus. However the Shanter Hill facility did function in Blockchain Sports activities’ Belarus advertising marketing campaign.
The ultimate location round which the drifters had been doing their promoting turns was… “Shanter Hill”!
On no account exceptional, in opposition to the backdrop of historic landmarks, a spot – an empty, unfinished constructing. Except you think about that it’s about to slide out of the palms of the proprietor, who doesn’t manage to pay for to finish the challenge.
They drove cameras beneath the facade, laid a crimson carpet to the abandoned constructing, lit up the spotlights over the heads of the extras.
They kicked the expired star Til Schweiger out of the automotive. They recorded it on video and dispersed.
Saskanov’s ties to the Belarusian authorities are reported to be via Dmitry Baskov, a Belarusian senator.
Baskov was initially pitched on Blockchain Sports activities’ first soccer themed crypto Ponzi scheme.
The founding father of the Blockchain Sports activities Ecosystem challenge, Dmitry Saksonov, approached me with an initiative to develop soccer,” the Senator’s web site stories .
“As a member of the Council of the Republic answerable for sports activities, I couldn’t refuse him. This can be a really fascinating challenge that deserves consideration and assist. […]
Such tasks make basic sports activities extra engaging to a younger viewers, so I hope that with the assistance of the Blockchain Sports activities Ecosystem we’ll entice many boys to sports activities […].”
Blockchain Sports activities’ preliminary soccer ruse Ponzi led to a “soccer carnival” held on the Dinamo Stadium in Minsk.
The underside line from these two weeks? Tons of content material with Blockchain Sports activities banners in recognizable places throughout the nation.
The precise nature of the enterprise relationship between Blockchain Sports activities’ Saskanov and Alexander Shakutin, the proprietor of the stalled Shanter Hill facility and a household good friend of President Alexander Lukashenko, is unclear.
Nasha Niva stories what has been constructed of Shanter Hill was executed so with cash borrowed from Chinese language lenders.
The publication opines that Saskanov could also be trying to entice naive buyers within the UAE to repay Shakutin’s debt.
Til Schweiger was drafted in to step out of his automotive and into the void of Shanter Hill, which was unfinished with unpaid Chinese language cash.
One may additionally suspect Senator Baskov, who’s grasping for problematic property (right here we imply the battery plant in Brest and the photo voltaic station in Chechersk), of taking part in with others’ palms, deceiving the state with fairy tales and avoiding direct battle with Shakutin. However there are few info for this model, time will inform.
Essentially the most extravagant model we heard is that, whereas speaking about blockchain, Shakutin himself is looking for cash the place it’s – in Arab enterprise funds. This might assist resolve his downside. A magic wand.
If we handle to seek out non-critical buyers and instill in them the picture of a Belarusian blockchain paradise, then the legally obtained funds may very well be used to repay the Chinese language mortgage, and as for the destiny of the startups themselves, we will shrug our shoulders – it didn’t work out, it didn’t work out.
And Saksonov ended up at Shakutin’s fingertips and, along with his competencies, appears to be like like a really perfect candidate for locating suckers?
Sitting right here with hindsight, it’s not unreasonable to counsel the unique plan was to have gullible Daisy International Ponzi buyers repay Shakutin’s debt after which disappear.
That fell via with Daisy International collapsing. And so now now we have the AI drift circus, evidently being desperately pitched to potential UAE buyers.
As of October 2024, SimilarWeb tracked ~10,000 month-to-month visits to Blockchain Sports activities’ web site. That is up from simply ~5700 month-to-month visits in September.
Talking to Blockchain Sports activities’ drift advertising occasion in Belarus, high sources of site visitors to Blockchain Sports activities’ web site are Belarus (56%), the US (16%) and Brazil (15%).
To the extent Belarusians is perhaps falling for Blockchain Sports activities and investing as retail customers, one would hope native authorities take motion.
In actuality although, what with the Belarusian authorities serving to to advertise Blockchain Sports activities, that sadly appears unlikely.