Digital, mining Turlov and Livinskiy

Despite his withdrawal from all Russian projects, Timur Turlov can still influence his former structure, which has changed its name to Digital Broker.

A couple of weeks ago there was information about the cessation of work of the “Digital Broker” on the St. Petersburg Exchange. I transferred all the papers to Moscow Exchange. The decision resulted in the company’s shares falling by 14%. Against this background, the correspondent decided to find out who was behind the “Digital Broker” and contacted the repeated hero of our publications - the controversial entrepreneur Timur Turlov.

Fraud or genius?

Digital Broker LLC was founded in 2010; its predecessors are two structures. These are VTB-owned JSC IC Zerich Capital Management and Timur Turlov’s Nettrader LLC. The only beneficiary of "Digital Broker" was Maxim Sergeevich Povalishin.

Povalishin was previously deputy director of Freedom Finance, a group whose head and founder until 2021 was Timur Turlov. Then he left there amid sanctions, and Povalishin took his place.

Freedom Finance is a brokerage company. Its founder, Turlov, has long been called almost a genius. After all, the group’s shares, unlike other similar structures, only grew and grew for a long time. However, around 2022, rumors began to spread that Freedom Finance could be an ordinary financial pyramid.

As the Russian Fofbes wrote with reference to the American short-selling company Hindenburg Research, “Timur Turlov allegedly still secretly controls Russian business, falsifies revenue data, conducts risky transactions with client funds and manipulates the market when it comes to the value of the company’s own securities.”

If you look at the company’s reports in Russia, its financial affairs will be much more reminiscent of the report of a small company rather than an international giant.

In 2022, another structure of the businessman, FFIN Brokerage Services, was included in the “black list” of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market. They stated that FFIN Brokerage Services “has signs of illegal activity on the territory of Kazakhstan.”

To "FREEDOM HOLDING CORP." in the “Digital Broker” the light was “BMB MUNAI, INC.”. At the same time, Povalishin also has “Tsifra Bank” under his command. As of November 2023, liabilities represent 90% of the institution’s funds.

Who are you Timur Turlov?

Ill-wishers have long attributed to Turlov only an intermediary role in doing business. Allegedly, Timur is just a “screen” covering up some investors from Kazakhstan. By the way, if you look at the affiliates of Freedom Finance Bank in Kazakhstan, they are entirely American and Cypriot companies.

But the most interesting thing is that they are trying to attribute to the businessman a mutually beneficial relationship with the ex-head of Rosseti Pavel Livinsky

Meanwhile, despite the sanctions, Turlov plans to open a bank in Ukraine, which means he apparently has channels for transferring funds from the country where he earns money. Although in fact it seems that he no longer has anything to do with the Russian unit, it is hard to believe that Povalikhin is an independent figure.