On paper – crypto loans. In reality — a classic microcredit company with a criminal superstructure. That’s exactly how the extremely strange outfit called BitCapital operates.

Initially, BitCapital positioned itself as a fintech service: quick loans «in cryptocurrency» without banks and bureaucracy. In practice, it turned out to be one of the most toxic hybrids of recent years – a mixture of MFOs, gray collectors, and offshore masking. Formally, the client «took USDT», but in fact received money to their card. This substitution allowed it to avoid obtaining a license, not comply with interest rate restrictions, and evade NBU oversight.

That’s why the scheme operated in a gray zone for so long. The scandal around BitCapital began after the regulator officially acknowledged: under the guise of loans in cryptocurrency, the service was issuing regular loans in hryvnia, bypassing Ukrainian legislation. But the scandal arose as a result of the actions of collectors servicing BitCapital, who applied extremely harsh methods not only to those who borrowed money from BitCapital, but also to those on whom these debts were simply hung, issuing loans using forged documents.

After numerous appeals from victims to the police, it suddenly turned out that the police didn’t know whom to look for – BitCapital is not registered in Ukraine, operates here as a division of a British firm, and the collectors are completely unclear who they are. At least, that’s how the official version sounded.

Why can’t anyone find the people behind this outfit? Can’t – or don’t want to? Because, no matter what law enforcement claims, finding the beneficiaries of BitCapital, though not as easy as it seems, is still quite feasible.

And there are only two reasons why the owners of the company that’s «scamming» Ukrainians out of millions can’t be found: unprofessionalism and unwillingness to do anything. Although, more likely, our valiant «law enforcers» skillfully cover their unwillingness to search for scammers with incompetence. Which, quite possibly, has been cleverly stimulated.

However, it must be noted that after several years of public scandals, a group of collectors linked to BitCapital was finally detained just a few days ago. But who these people are, what company they belong to, and who stands behind it – neither the NPU nor the OGPU reports – everything is maximally anonymous.

Of course, in the near future, the data on these detainees will be «leaked», and the names and surnames will become known. But already now a question arises – are these suspects the real beneficiaries of the scheme? And already now there is an answer to this question – almost one hundred percent, no. The beneficiaries are completely different people.

And finding them if desired is not at all difficult. Especially with that all-encompassing access to registries that Ukrainian security forces gained as a result of total digitalization. This statement is not groundless. Even operating with open data, the following can be established.

VitCapital operates in Ukraine as a representative of three legal entities registered in London: GOLDEN INTEREST GROUP LIMITED, SOCIAL FINANCE CARE AND WELLBEING INVESTMENTS LLP, and CRYPTO CAPITAL LIMITED. Information about their owners has long been known – back in February 2025, the National Bank of Ukraine issued information about them. The owners of the companies at that time were Ukrainian citizens: Yuriy Sydorenko from Dnipro, Andriy Stepanenko, and British subject Atif Ahmad.

After the regulator announced this information, the first two were seemingly urgently replaced with elderly nominees. But regarding Sidenko and Stepanenko, no investigative actions were taken. It is extremely difficult for journalists to dig into who exactly these people are – the surnames and names are too common. But the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the OGPU, and ultimately the SSU, like other Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, have a whole set of tools for such cases.

For example, they could check the issuance of foreign passports under these surnames in the databases, establish where and when these persons crossed the Ukrainian border, ask the British embassy – who with such names and surnames received visas. This way, the circle of suspects would narrow to literally a few individuals. But none of this was done – it all ended with a statement that the company owners were «replaced with nominees». By the way, no one worked with the nominees either – they didn’t come out of thin air, did they?

There is another trail. And a very clear one – in the same February 2025, «Forbes» reported that «the online service BitCapital was registered under the legal entity JSC «ZNICIF «Bit Capital» in January 2008 in Dnipro, according to YouControl data. Authorized person – Angelika Panacheva. The amount of the authorized capital of the legal entity is 200,700,000 UAH. The status of the legal entity was terminated in July 2017».

Yes, indeed, JSC «ZNICIF «Bit Capital» was liquidated. But again – it didn’t come out of thin air either? Why didn’t anyone ask Ms. Panacheva any questions? She definitely knew who she worked for. There is another trail also related to JSC «ZNICIF «Bit Capital». These are – its founders. According to data from the OpenDataBot service, they were «three persons as shareholders». Who exactly these «three persons» are is not disclosed, but two shareholders with large stakes are known: ChAT «Trading House Azovzagalmasch» and LLC «Nadry-finans».

Although «Azovzagalmasch» was also liquidated, its beneficiary is quite known – Savchuk Svitlana:

As for LLC «Nadry-finans», it is not liquidated and, although it has a Cypriot offshore «Sasir Holdings Limited» as its owner, in 2019, the beneficiary was listed as Marchuk Maksym. It is quite possible that he has no relation to the current activities of LLC «Nadry-finans», but he should have been asked questions too – after all, he interacted with someone when transferring ownership rights to the company? Moreover, since 2019, the company has been managed by Kabakov Igor. He’s not just sitting in the director’s chair for no reason, is he? 

However, this line was not followed up. Because it leads further – for example, Igor Kabakov is simultaneously a director at LLC «Nadry-Alliance». A company that also provides financial services and has the same Cypriot offshore as its founder. But for some reason, this did not arouse interest from law enforcement. Of course, it could be a coincidence – but why didn’t anyone bother to check even open registries?

As for JSC «ZNICIF «Bit Capital», it, in turn, owned corporate rights to two companies: LLC «Art Estate» and LLC «Artfinance». Both companies are also liquidated, but there were people there too, whose surnames are in open registries.

ChAT «Trading House Azovzagalmasch», which acted as one of the shareholders of the «Bit Capital» fund, in turn, owned corporate rights to six companies:

After all, there were living people working in these companies too. Couldn’t anyone be found? The answer is simple – no one was looking for anyone. They brushed it off with a nice phrase – «owners changed to elderly beneficiaries».

But there are other trails that the structure loudly called «cyberpolice» should have followed. Clients somehow contacted BitCapital, right? How did they receive money – not in cash, surely? Why didn’t they track the transactions? The transactions also had a return path – from the client to the lender. Yes, drop accounts might have been used. But they had to be obtained somewhere? And a lot of them were needed, judging by the scale of BitCapital. Why didn’t anyone look for the recruiters of these drops?

Why didn’t anyone search for call centers where both those who persuaded people to take loans from BitCapital and those who demanded money worked? In structure, BitCapital almost completely repeats illegal microfinance networks and «black» collector projects. Why was this overlooked for so long?

There are other questions too. The answer to almost all of them is given by the location where both BitCapital itself and the structures servicing it were concentrated. This is – the city of Dnipro. Which has long become the capital of Ukrainian call centers and the large-scale fraud associated with them.

Hence the conclusion: the beneficiaries of BitCapital were not searched for because they had to search for themselves. That’s why the loud detention of this outfit’s collectors seems like pure showmanship.