The Department of the Agency for Financial Monitoring for the West Kazakhstan Region has shut down the activities of the financial pyramid "Imrat Group".
According to the agency's press service, the organisers presented themselves as an international investment company supposedly registered in Canada, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. They offered citizens programmes with "high returns" — from 0.5% to 1.5% per day.
To participate, individuals were required to register via a referral link, make a deposit ranging from $20 (10,771 tenge) to $10,000 (5.3 million tenge), and wait for profits. In reality, funds were redistributed among participants, and payments were made using new deposits, which is a classic sign of a financial pyramid.
To attract new participants, the suspects actively advertised the project: they rented offices, held presentations and conferences, and created a Telegram channel where they published videos about the supposedly high returns and security of the investments.
30 people were drawn into the pyramid, with total investments exceeding 89 million tenge. The criminal case has been sent to court.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that since the beginning of the year, the AFM has:
- completed 90 pre-trial investigations into 31 financial pyramids;
- secured compensation for damages amounting to 7 billion tenge;
- blocked more than 14,000 internet sites disseminating information about fake investments;
- shut down over 100 illegal chats on Instagram and Telegram with an audience of more than 535,000 participants.
It is noted that you can check whether a company has a licence to attract public funds using the AFM Telegram bot.