Shielded by influence and criminal ties: why Nazar Babenko remains at large while his crypto schemes defrauded thousands

When it comes to public figures, particularly those who reportedly seek to conceal compromising information about themselves, open-source materials can often provide valuable insight. This appears especially relevant in the case of Nazar Babenko, who presents himself as a cryptocurrency investor claiming to have earned hundreds of millions of dollars through crypto investments.

Nazar Babenko gained fame in the public sphere with his collection of allegedly his super-expensive sports cars, a personal Gulfstream g700 jet, and a flaunted luxurious lifestyle. Babenko, who has barely turned thirty, explains all of this with a successful strategy in cryptocurrency trading.

At the same time, in court registers, there is a claim against Nazar Babenko from "PrivatBank" regarding the recovery of funds from him in the amount of 314,705.02 hryvnias under a credit agreement from July 24, 2019, as well as a claim by Nazar Babenko against a certain Mykhailo Romanenko regarding the recovery of debt from the latter in the amount of 44,298,758 hryvnias and 60 kopecks. This clearly does not align for a simple reason: if Babenko is capable of lending 44 million to someone, why does he take a loan for 314 thousand and cannot repay it?

But this is only the tip of the iceberg, as Nazar Babenko is quite a notable personality. Just like Mykhailo Romanenko, who for many years was a front man for Nazar Babenko in cryptopyramids, and after falling under the scrutiny of the SSU, is trying to "back out" by revealing all the known schemes regarding Nazar Babenko and his accomplices. Judging by everything, Babenko’s claim against Romanenko for the recovery of a million dollars is an attempt to pacify a fool who is revealing everything he knows.

Pyramids Danvel Group and Eternity Business

And Romanenko is a fool because at one fine moment he agreed to work as a "front" for Babenko for a very small fee. According to Romanenko, he received from Nazar Babenko two to two and a half thousand dollars a month for being the registered owner of companies that ultimately organized pyramids through which billions of dollars were funneled, landing in Nazar Babenko’s and his partner Ihor Kotov’s pockets. At least that’s what Romanenko claims, portraying himself as a victim. But just yesterday, his public biography very much resembled the public image of Nazar Babenko.

Although, judging by the study of registers, Mykhailo Romanenko, like Nazar Babenko, rose from "rags to riches" – back in 2015-20, he was a small entrepreneur from Chernivtsi. Nevertheless, Romanenko’s story could be a separate issue, although thanks to his confessions, much became known about his boss Nazar Babenko, whom Romanenko now reports to.

Let’s agree: believing everything Romanenko says about Nazar Babenko indiscriminately is not an option because he clearly tries to portray himself as a naive fool deceived by the sinister tempter Babenko. But no matter how you put it, the essence boils down to Nazar Babenko being one of the key figures in the international pyramids Danvel Group and Eternity Business, which deceived gullible "investors" out of millions of dollars.

The essence of pyramid operations is simple, as the experience from the legendary MMM shows. Here, the internet and social networks have come to the scammers’ aid – they don’t have millions of followers and demonstrate a lavish lifestyle filled with yachts, jets, and supercars for no reason. In this way, they supposedly say, "Do you want to live the same way? Bring us your money, and we’ll teach you how!". There are those interested, and they number at least in the hundreds of thousands.

What Mykhailo Romanenko recounts about the pyramid operations boils down to this: allegedly, Nazar Babenko and his accomplice Ihor Kotov registered companies Danvel Finances OÜ (Estonia) and Danvel Education Ltd (Great Britain) in Romanenko’s name, after which Mykhailo Romanenko was positioned as a "successful crypto-investor" with all the necessary attributes. Now the companies are liquidated, pyramids dismantled, but Nazar Babenko managed to siphon off at least several million dollars through these pyramids. The same goes for the other pyramid - Eternity Business, which was also registered under Mykhailo Romanenko, but Nazar Babenko and Ihor Kotov controlled all the flows. At least so claims Mykhailo Romanenko. But then the question arises – who are Nazar Babenko and Ihor Kotov?

Who is Nazar Babenko?

The scams of Danvel Group and Eternity Business have been written about repeatedly, you can at least read the material at this link.

But due to numerous investigations and, most importantly, the aforementioned statements from Mykhailo Romanenko and leaked interrogation excerpts with the SSU, where he speaks of Nazar Babenko’s role in the Danvel Group and Eternity Business pyramids, the question arises – why isn’t Nazar Babenko in prison? Who is he to have immunity not only from the law but also from individuals capable of manipulating this law for their purposes - let’s not forget that Nazar Babenko’s pyramids didn’t only deceive gullible ordinary citizens; serious people lost money in them. But – Nazar Babenko not only isn’t in prison, he has no troubles from what we might call "alternative justice". Simply put – bandits don’t touch him. Why?

The answer suggests itself – someone very strong is standing behind Nazar Babenko, capable of shielding him from both the law and bandits. And there is such a person, as is directly stated by Trinity Bugle, naming the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Smyrnov (dismissed after a corruption scandal in March 2024), as Babenko’s protector. This could be dismissed as fiction if not for several circumstances. Smyrnov is closely linked to Hennadiy Korban. Nazar Babenko is also associated with him. You can read more about it here.

And this connection answers many questions that any sensible person should ask themselves while looking at the glossy image of Nazar Babenko’s super-rich life, who just turned 30 – born in January 1994, and began flying on "his own" superjets and riding such "his own" supercars five years ago. In addition to this "rich" life, there’s also a concept called starting capital. Especially in the activities of a "crypto-guru" with a million-strong audience – not only do you need to produce the required content for this audience, but you also need to acquire this audience somewhere. And this costs a lot of money. It costs even more to open companies, advertise, hire staff to do all the dirty work: "deceive fools", receive money from them, transact it, maintain records, accounts, and so on. All this requires money. A lot and right away – since Nazar Babenko burst onto the glamor and "crypto-investment" scene suddenly and sharply from being an unknown resident of Dnipro.

The answer is simple – he happened to enter the orbit of the "Leon" organized crime group, led by some Mykhailo Koshlyak, who began with the legendary in Dnipro "Narik" (Oleksandr Nalekreshvili, who later changed his surname to Petrovskyi), and then worked closely with the "Privat" group. Koshlyak is called the head of the "power unit" of the "Privat" group, which was overseen by Korban.

The connection of Nazar Babenko with him is easily traceable through the same Ihor Kotov, whom Mykhailo Romanenko calls Nazar Babenko’s partner. Kotov and Babenko are indeed partners in several enterprises: LLC "Bloggersy" and the Charitable Foundation "Danvel Group".

Ihor Kotov, in turn, serves as a co-founder of SC "Leon". Along with Mykhailo Koshlyak and a number of other interesting individuals. Most of them are part of the eponymous "Leon" organized crime group, whose legal guise is a sports club.

How exactly Kotov and Babenko met is unknown, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that by 2015 they were already friends, having even gotten caught up in a scandal by beating a security guard in a parking lot for asking to move a Porsche Cayenne that was occupying several parking spaces at once. The Dnipropetrovsk police loudly declared to the whole country that both hooligans would be imprisoned. But the criminal case wasn’t even initiated – the reason for which probably needs no explanation.

What happened next is also unknown, but the young student of the Dnipropetrovsk University of Internal Affairs Nazar Babenko probably already got a taste of big money. Yet, for several more years, nothing was heard about him until 2019, when a company named EXA CONSULTING LTD was registered in his name in London (liquidated in June 2021).

It was from this time that Nazar Babenko’s career as a "crypto-investor" depicting a lifestyle incredibly high even for very rich countries began. Following that were Danvel Group and Eternity Business, which defrauded their investors out of millions of dollars. And for which Mykhailo Romanenko had to pay the price. Meanwhile, Nazar Babenko quietly left Ukraine in 2022, even after men of conscription age became non-departing. And he continued promoting crypto pyramids.

However, everything described above calls into question whether Nazar Babenko and Ihor Kotov are the real organizers and beneficiaries of these pyramids, whatever Mykhailo Romanenko might say. Which, by the way, isn’t sitting in jail either.

Most likely, Mykhailo Romanenko was a "front" for another front. That is, Nazar Babenko is as much a nominal figure as Romanenko, just of a higher level. Whether Kotov is a nominal figure is a question. But he also appears in documents – Kotov is listed as a member of the board of directors of Danvel.

Thus, it’s logical to assume, especially considering the figure of Andriy Smyrnov, who, besides his quite controversial work in the Office of the President, became famous for defending Hennadiy Korban as a lawyer, having collapsed several criminal cases, that both Nazar Babenko and Ihor Kotov are also "fronts", playing the role of nouveau riches who "got rich from cryptocurrency". And all those supercars, helicopters, yachts, and other trappings of an expensive life they showcase - are merely props. Needed to attract the same "fool", who, as we know, "is not a mammoth because he won’t go extinct".

And all the profit from the activities of the crypto pyramids, whose face is Nazar Babenko, is collected by other, much more serious individuals. This is confirmed, in particular, by the fact that Nazar Babenko is publicly highlighted. While the "crypto-guru Babenko" project is still operational, Babenko is needed. But when this project exhausts itself, Babenko will burn out, just as Romanenko did. But the consequences will be much harsher. And prison is far from the worst-case scenario because Nazar Babenko, it seems, knows too much.