Who is covering for the notorious crypto scammer Serhiy Tron?

Everyone who is at least a little interested in cryptocurrencies has at least once heard the name of Serhiy Tron, who is the publisher of Bitcoin Magazine in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, and positions himself as a "crypto investor".

The web is simply filled with materials featuring Serhiy Tron – he mostly speculates about the future of cryptocurrencies and gives advice of cosmic proportions to the leadership of Ukraine on how to earn billions for the country. At the same time, he tells an exciting story about how he was left without a father and had to support his family, but managed to rise and become a billionaire. He started at the age of 22 as the CEO of a company dealing with oil refining, wholesale fuel supplies, and transportation. And then it all took off, resulting in millions of US dollars. And all, mind you, through completely honest means.

There’s nothing to comment on here. Honestly, stories like this are just nauseating. And this career of a "self-made man" has already been dissected more than once. Moreover, Tron himself gets confused in his own biography. For example, in the above screenshot, he is the "President of LLC ’Ecooil’," but Wikipedia mentions the following: "In 2009, he founded LLC ’Ecooil’ (Donetsk) for oil extraction and oil production."

There are other inconsistencies, but they can be explained very simply – Tron started with the "Donetsk people" during their takeover of all of Ukraine and was initially a nominal figurehead for Nurulislam and Roman Arkallaev, prominent representatives of the Donetsk organized crime group "Lux". Nurulislam Arkallaev later became a respected politician and was elected to parliament three times. Guess from which political force. Naturally, Serhiy Tron followed suit – his talent and intellect cannot be denied, as no one was pushed to the top or allowed to manage financial flows for the Donetsk people just for good looks. It’s very easy to verify that Serhiy Tron is connected with the Arkallaev brothers – here’s an extract from the registry regarding LLC ’Ecooil’.

And here’s a bit of the company’s history, which clarifies how the "poor but hardworking and honest" Serhiy Tron earned his first capital. Interestingly, all the criminal cases initiated in 2014 for overpricing petroleum supplies to the Ministry of Defence and Ukrzaliznytsia ended without consequences.

That’s the whole secret. Further research of open data and registries confirms the simple fact: all of Serhiy Tron’s millions were earned by robbing the state, and his "crypto projects" are a giant scam. And it’s not an ordinary "pyramid scheme" for small-time suckers buying a "new promising shitcoin," it’s much more complex and seems to be targeted at those with more money – people (or possibly the state) who are ready to invest in mining. But more on that later, for now, let’s delve a little deeper into the biography of the "crypto investor".

And here you cannot ignore the "City Commercial Bank," where Serhiy Tron was the vice president. By the way, Wikipedia is silent about this, but in the article dedicated to Serhiy Tron on this resource, there is a note: "The neutrality of this article is disputed. The article has an overtly promotional character." After studying the lot of the bank where Tron was vice president, it becomes clear why he tries not to advertise his association with the bank known as CityCommerceBank, which went bankrupt in 2014. At least three billion hryvnias in 2013 money, equivalent to at least 375 million dollars, were siphoned out of the bank. Serhiy Tron wasn’t just its vice president – he was among its owners. Together with Nurulislam Arkallaev.

The Global Financial Management Group, behind which stood Tron and Arkallaev, is hidden behind offshore companies from Cyprus and Belize. But interestingly, among them is the Ukrainian LLC ’Patriot Capital’ with very interesting founders.

The owners of LLC ’Patriot Capital’ are Frick Roger Edmund, a citizen of Liechtenstein, a "daughter" company ’DSG Establishment’ from the same Liechtenstein, and two Ukrainian citizens – Dmytro Diamant and Oleksandr Sachuk-Bazylevych.

First, about the Ukrainian citizens. No information could be found about Diamant, but the story with Oleksandr Sachuk-Bazylevych is much more interesting. Firstly, he and his family are burdened with a huge amount of debts, primarily to ’ExpoBank’, which also went bankrupt in 2014 and, by a strange coincidence, is also connected with the "family" of Yanukovych.

But it gets even more interesting – there is an attempt to initiate a case recognizing Oleksandr Sachuk-Bazylevych as partially incapacitated. But that’s not all – Sachuk-Bazylevych is accused in a criminal case №2024100060000812. No sources could be found explaining the charge, but he is accused under the fourth part of Article 185 of the Criminal Code – "theft in large amounts". Currently, the claim about Sachuk-Bazylevych’s incapacitation has been denied, and the criminal case is under consideration.

Here, it’s necessary to mention the loan that Sachuk-Bazylevych is not repaying – the amount is 1,460,000 dollars, issued back in 2007. It’s doubtful that one could simply walk into ’ExpoBank’ (or any other bank) and get nearly one and a half million dollars just like that. But even more astounding is that all courts declined ’ExpoBank’ claims. It means Oleksandr Sachuk-Bazylevych managed to scam the family’s bank. It’s hard to believe. Most likely, it’s a story similar to CityCommerceBank – involving the siphoning of money.

But obvious questions arise: either the co-owner of CityCommerceBank (through Global Financial Management Group and LLC ’Patriot Capital’) Oleksandr Sachuk-Bazylevych is being extricated from both the theft case and the debt case to ’ExpoBank’ (the lawsuit is still ongoing, despite the cassation decision) this way, or he is really sick. But then the question is even more interesting – what is he doing in such a company? Because Sachuk-Bazylevych’s partner in LLC ’Patriot Capital’, Frick Roger Edmund, owns three companies registered in the UK: CHIPION SERVICES LIMITED (09696630), HYDRO INDUSTRIAL LIMITED (04680533), and DUNAGE. All of them have been liquidated, but HYDRO INDUSTRIAL LIMITED declared its business as "production and transmission of electricity".

And remember, the company was owned by the partner of Serhiy Tron and the Arkallaev brothers, citizen of Liechtenstein Roger Frick. Most likely, he is also a figurehead, but we need to return to Tron’s biography, who claims to be the owner of White Rock Management – a company engaged in "technology investments and data center construction." The latter are specifically mining farms.

This part of Tron’s business has been extensively written about, you can read here. However, there are several points to note. It seems that cryptocurrency mining was initially Serhiy Tron’s personal initiative – he became interested in this field after the sharp rise of Bitcoin, which was unwanted initially. But when its growth began to be measured in thousands of percent, everyone rushed there. Most simply bought it. But Tron, it seems, delved into the problem and realized that mining is better. Later, it turned out that it costs a lot of money – both for equipment and, much more expensive, for electricity. Therefore, it seems that they decided to abandon mining farms in Britain.

However, what happened is unknown. The other important thing is that Serhiy Tron calls himself the founder of the White Rock Management company. In the Ukrainian registers, there is a private joint-stock company "Closed Undiversified Corporate Venture Investment Fund ’White Rock Investments’." In English, its name is White Rock Management. But here’s the extract from the Ukrainian register.

And here’s the structure of White Rock Management AG from the Swiss registries:

Tron’s surname is not here. Does that mean he has no relation to the company? No. It just means he is not its beneficiary but, again, a figurehead. Maybe part of White Rock Management AG indeed belongs to Serhiy Tron, after all the years he has been siphoning off the family’s money and for so many years serving the Donetsk people, but certainly not the main part. Among the surnames in the company’s structure, the name Oleksandr Voronov stands out. He was the director of the White Rock Investment Fund of Serhiy Tron. By the way, note the financial results of this fund:

Voronov joined White Rock Management AG as the chairman of the board only in 2023. Another interesting character is Oleh Tsyhura. He was with the fund since its inception in 2018. Tsyhura is associated with the supply of ilmenite from mainland Ukraine to Firtash’s factory in the occupied Crimea.

Now add two plus two: White Rock Management AG was founded in 2018 by unknown people (Swiss registries are closed), but the company is managed by a person associated with Firtash and the Russian special services – try to supply strategic raw materials to occupied Crimea just like that. He was replaced in this position by Giovanni Salvietti, who lives in Moscow. Then he was succeeded by Oleksandr Voronov, who worked as director in Kyiv, in the White Rock Investment Fund of Serhiy Tron.

Now another fact from Serhiy Tron’s lengthy biography. He writes himself that he was a "co-founder and later chairman of the supervisory board of ’UkrTBS’, a company engaged in nuclear fuel production". The story of how this ’UkrTBS’ was created by Russians and then an attempt was made through it to oust the American Westinghouse Electric from Ukraine – here. In 2019, Tron almost went to prison for this story, but a change of power saved him. And he resurfaced already as a crypto investor.

Now about the crypto-scam hidden behind White Rock Management AG. Serhiy Tron actively promotes in the public arena the idea of the extraordinary value of cryptocurrencies and their great future. Just enter his name and surname into a search engine and see the results. Those interested can even read his fictions. But the essence is what is behind all this – Tron is trying to convey the idea that mining crypto is a super-profitable activity. Of course, this idea is not for the small-time sucker who bought his last money some next "shitcoin". This is for a big sucker who can afford to buy a whole mining farm and wait for the millions invested in it to pay off.

Remember, according to Serhiy Tron’s statement, "his" White Rock Management is engaged in "creating data centers." But, as hopefully understood from our investigation, he doesn’t have the money. Therefore, all this facade is a cover-up for a wealthy sucker who invested in Serhiy Tron’s mining farms, or could invest there. The huge question is whether mining farms, which, according to Tron, are located in Canada, Kazakhstan, Sweden, and North America (Canada must be somewhere else if Tron specifically singles out North America), actually exist.

Why does the existence of mining farms raise doubts? Because of the cost of the main raw material for this activity – all the named countries, except Kazakhstan, have very high electricity costs. Plus – legislation and almost complete lack of corruption. As for Kazakhstan, Serhiy Tron announced the construction of a mining farm in this country back in 2021, the project was supposed to cost 200 million dollars. Whether anyone invested in it or not is unknown, but as of October 2024, there is no farm in Kazakhstan, and nobody knows where it should have been at all.

From here, a simple conclusion – all these "crypto-projects" of Serhiy Tron are an ordinary scam, although with million-dollar investments. But another conclusion is that perhaps Serhiy Tron, who is a talented person, acts as the organizer of the scam, but he is hardly an independent player in all this mining poppycock. Are the "Donetsk people" involved in this? Undoubtedly. Are the Russians involved in this? Absolutely – enough to study the mentioned story with ’UkrTBS’, which was twisted from start to finish by the Russian special services to deprive Ukraine of energy independence and put its power plants on the "nuclear needle".

Another question arises – how do representatives of the Ukrainian higher authorities participate in all this, without whom not a single even entirely legal enterprise that promises profit is possible in the country. And here is a clear scam, with millions of dollars of the most dubious origin. The answer also suggests itself.