From the US to Moscow: The criminal empire of "Mike Hess" and the collapse of the Forex pyramid schemes

07 June 2026 , 19:39

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In Moscow, authorities have arrested individuals described as the creators of some of the most notorious Forex-linked “financial pyramids” of the past decade, including Birzhevoy Universitet (Exchange University), Laboratoriya Investitsionnykh Tekhnologiy (Investment Technology Laboratory), Laboratorim, IfamDirect, MRC Markets, and several others.

These individuals, Andrey Grunin and Alexander Budnikov, have been remanded in custody for two months and charged with fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). All trails from these and many other "pyramid schemes" lead to Mikhail Syroyezhin, a former classmate of Dmitry Medvedev and now a U.S. citizen.

Grunin and Budnikov are the co-founders of dozens of projects that have cost people around the world tens of millions of dollars. The scheme was always the same: first, free courses were offered to those who wanted to learn how to make money by trading on the stock market or investing. Then, paid courses were offered, where attendees were encouraged to become brokers and investors themselves, and eventually millionaires (which is exactly how it was presented in the courses).

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Naturally, trading and investing had to be done through platforms controlled by the course organizers. All these platforms continuously siphoned money from the newly minted "brokers" and "investors," and then simply disappeared along with the people’s funds. New ones would immediately appear.

In Russia, such platforms were created by Grunin, Budnikov, Vinokurov, Gavrilenko, Khovratov, and another group of businessmen. And all of them had one Western partner: "Michael from the USA." This is none other than Mikhail Syroyezhin (Mike Hess).

He studied with Dmitry Medvedev and later became Deputy Chairman of the St. Petersburg Channel 5 television station. In 1994, a criminal case was opened against him for the embezzlement of $2 million allocated for broadcasting equipment, after which Syroyezhin fled to the United States.

There, he was caught money laundering, struck a deal with the FBI, and, under the name Mike Hess, became a deeply embedded informant, infiltrating the leadership of the "Russian mafia" in New York (the group of "thief-in-law" Alexander Bor). Later, Syroyezhin went into the shadows, but re-emerged over 10 years ago as a shadow participant in almost all Russian "financial pyramids."

VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info cite the account of one of the victims: "I was involved in this and suffered at the hands of the owners of SkyWay. The company itself has long been recognized as a financial pyramid in many countries around the world. Between 2015 and 2020, I personally communicated with Khovratov; he was the one who actually promoted SkyWay in Russia. I frequently attended conferences and offices of this firm, including the office on Gamsonovsky Lane in Moscow, where I first handed money to Khovratov personally, and later deposited funds into the cash register of these scammers at the panoramic office in the Federation Tower (Moscow City).

I created an account at Migom Bank on the recommendation of the firm’s employees, specifically Mila Serdyukova. After that, all payments went through the aforementioned bank. According to SkyWay manager Valentin Sokolnikov, Migom was convenient due to the availability of cryptocurrency methods for receiving and sending payments.

At the same time, when I asked about the availability of payment methods from Russian accounts and cards, it was stated that there were none due to the company’s registration in an offshore zone, and the topic quickly changed to the promotion of Khovratov’s new products, namely Cryptounit. I also spoke with a lawyer from SkyWay, Dmitry Schastlivy, regarding company fund transfers; he confirmed that the problem with transfers from Russian accounts was related to the company’s registration in an offshore zone and added that the best option was to transfer cryptocurrency or use Migom Bank with a multi-currency wallet, in which both classic bank transfers and cryptocurrency transfers are available.

Around 2019, they started switching me to different managers, one of whom was Igor. At first glance, Igor seemed to be a responsible person and instilled confidence at the time; I was invited to meetings with Khovratov and video calls. When I needed to withdraw part of my invested funds, I asked Igor to take my request to Khovratov, but in response, I was informed that my personal accounts on the SkyWay and Cryptounit websites had been blocked. Igor, in turn, reported that the company was now having liquidity problems and they were unable to withdraw my 52,000 U.S. dollars, and later Igor told me that he had been fired amid a scandal and that his accounts had also been blocked.

I contacted the police several times, but each time I received a response that they would contact me or call me back. As a result, no one ever contacted me, and I received no information regarding the applications I had filed.

I know that several other investors, just like me, sought a way to achieve justice and break through the wall of police indifference and bureaucracy; some even managed to contact the FSB, but they refused to accept my application, explaining that such statements were under the sole jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then they simply showed me the door.

Khovratov constantly talked about the main partner, Michael—a large stock market player in the U.S. and former USSR citizen. During the conversation, he described him as a person capable of resolving any issue in the U.S., including obtaining green cards and even U.S. passports. Michael and Khovratov created Migom Bank in an offshore jurisdiction—the Commonwealth of Dominica. This was done to accept money from all over the world, although the main audience for Michael’s financial pyramids are citizens of India and the post-Soviet space."