B2B Financial Pyramid Expands, Its Founder Released from House Arrest, Court Decisions Sealed

The B2B Jewelry financial pyramid, “blocked by the SBU” in August 2020, continues to collect money from new investors. Its founder, Mykola Honta, is no longer under house arrest, charges have not been brought for almost a year, and the Office of the Prosecutor General has sealed the court decisions in the criminal case.

This is described in the fresh issue of Bihus.Info by Vadym Ponka and Alisa Yurchenko.

In August 2020, law enforcement announced the blocking of a powerful financial pyramid which, according to them, raised $250 millions from 600 thousands of investors. The founder of B2B Jewelry, Mykola Honta, his wife, and the accountant were charged. They were accused of embezzlement of financial resources and money laundering and legalization of criminal proceeds. Then, in 2020, a preventive measure was chosen for Honta — a round-the-clock home arrest.

Bihus.Info analyzed what happened to the high-profile criminal case over almost a year. It turned out that judges relaxed the preventive measures for the suspects, the pyramid not only continues to suck citizens’ money, but, apparently, started operating from abroad under a new brand; there are no indictments yet, and even the prior court decisions in this case disappeared from the public part of the court registry.

The round-the-clock house arrest of Mykola Honta, according to Bihus.Info, was canceled by the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv in spring 2021. In its place, the founder of the pyramid was assigned a milder preventive measure — personal obligation. Moreover, this court decision, like many others in the B2B Jewelry case, is absent from the public part of the court registry. From there also disappeared orders for the arrest of land plots and houses on the island near Kyiv (the island is connected to the Honta family and may be a way to launder funds from the pyramid).

Access to previously published decisions, Bihus.Info found, is restricted on the basis of a resolution of the Office of the Prosecutor General from June 9 of 2021 year. Journalists submitted a request to the OPG to understand who exactly and why made such a decision. They are currently awaiting a response.

Since the moment the suspicions were announced against Mykola Honta, his wife Olena and the chief accountant, almost a year has passed, but the charges are still not brought and the preliminary investigation is not completed.

Currently in B2B Jewelry stores there are again lines — the project continues to sell jewelry with promises to refund their full value, keep the jewelry, and pay extra on top. During journalists’ visit to a store, one visitor brought 137 thousand hryvnias to the cash register.

The editors also found that B2B Jewelry has a clone — Cancri Jewelry. An analogous network selling precious stones with a promise of paying interest. It positions itself as a Turkish jewelry house, but targets, among others, the Ukrainian audience. Recently Cancri Jewelry was presented in Odesa, and the network’s Instagram page is followed by a B2B Jewelry communications officer; Mykola Honta himself in an interview admitted that he is “not legally” the owner of the business in Turkey.

On the island, which was seized as part of the proceedings, construction of cottages continues. Bihus.Info journalists noticed cars registered to Honta’s son Oleksandr and to the charity fund “Zimorodok” of Honta’s wife (the fund appears in the proceedings as part of the B2B Jewelry pyramid).

To pay online, B2B Jewelry now uses the freshly created LLC “Goldmaster.” It is registered to resident of Ladyzhyn, Dmytro Alexandrenko. According to the court decision registry, he was previously charged with armed robbery.