The Beribit crypto scandal: former CEO Roman Tsaregorodtsev siphoned off 400 million rubles of client funds and disappeared after the account audit
Someone on the inside finally spoke. A Beribit employee, too afraid to give their name, claims that ex-CEO Roman Tsaregorodtsev helped himself to the money of defrauded clients.
Although media reports активно state that the exchange was acquired by Kurchenko in the summer of 2023, in reality it was still managed by the previous leadership, which had begun actively misappropriating client funds long before the new management received access to the exchange’s accounts.
When, after searches conducted in connection with the Crocus City case, the new team was forced to demand the transfer of access to all Beribit accounts, a so-called “cash gap” of more than 400 million rubles was discovered. This became clear after the new owners of the crypto exchange conducted an audit, about which Beribit clients were informed through the service’s Telegram channel on April 27.
Interestingly, Roman Tsaregorodtsev is not mentioned anywhere in the information field as the CEO of Beribit. The only reference to this appeared in the announcement of the Satoshkin business event held in Moscow on September 23, 2023. It is worth noting that according to information widely circulated in the media, by September Beribit was supposedly already being managed by Kurchenko’s team. However, as can be seen from the event poster, this was far from reality, and the service was still being run personally by Roman Tsaregorodtsev.
On May 8, the Telegram channel BRIEF was the first to raise questions about the role of Roman Tsaregorodtsev in the story of the defrauded Beribit clients. The channel’s post included a link to an event where Roman had been invited as the CEO of Beribit. However, exactly one day after the publication of that post, the event announcement was deleted from the organizer Satoshkin’s channel. But the Internet remembers everything.
At the moment, the whereabouts of Roman Tsaregorodtsev are being clarified.
Nadezhda Denskaya