Swag is a challenge we had already talked about in an article a while in the past. Our neighborhood, nevertheless, has at all times requested us for updates as a result of, regardless of the blatant and suspicious multi-level advertising and marketing, the corporate Swag OÜ is registered with the OAM register (the competent physique that collects brokers who deal in monetary actions with out, sadly, doing any due diligence) and has continued its enlargement for years with occasions and promotions in crucial Italian financial newspapers. What’s lacking, after all, is authorisation from Consob, which too usually fails to make its voice heard in defence of the savers it’s supposed to guard, regardless of studies.
We’ve got opened a Telegram group to permit our neighborhood to freely focus on the subject, you’ll be able to enter from this hyperlink: t.me/swagdecripto
What’s Swag?
Understanding what Swag actually is is just not simple, seeing the façade, i.e. web sites and interviews, it seems like an attractive Italian firm selling Bitcoin by means of the distant rental of mining machines, a pockets and even a Mastercard debit card.
Digging in, nevertheless, reveals the primary darkish sides. The promotion is in actual fact entrusted to ‘promoters’ who obtain a proportion on affiliations with a tiered system that could be very harking back to a pyramid scheme. In an effort to recruit promoters and promote affiliations, dozens of occasions per thirty days are organised in all Italian cities (as we will see within the image beneath).
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On this article, nevertheless, we won’t focus on intimately how the multi-level scheme works. Suffice it to say that, as with many different related ‘tasks’, there are numerous {qualifications} ranging from ‘Bronze’ as much as ‘Black Star’, awarded relying on the preliminary funding and the depth and ‘high quality’ of the community. Promoters are assigned (for a charge) an actual dashboard known as the Digital Workplace the place they’ll handle their enterprise and consider the progress of their community. As if this weren’t sufficient, within the presentation doc (web page 26), it’s clearly acknowledged that “The Infinity Rental Reward (i.e. the fee system of 1’s personal community) is the actual earnings of the Swag challenge”. For extra on this, I refer you to our first article on the topic.
Who’s behind Swag?
As the corporate Swag OÜ is registered with the OAM, its members are well-known. The corporate relies within the Estonian capital Tallinn, in an nameless constructing within the metropolis centre. Its shareholders, as listed within the Estonian industrial register, are:
John Lionetti
CEO and founding father of Swag, he’s a widely known and influential determine on this planet of community advertising and marketing on blockchain. He has participated as a speaker at varied business conferences together with the Blockchain Revolution Summit in Bolzano.
In his previous we discover traces in tasks which can be something however crystal-clear. Between 2016 and 2017, he was one of many founders of StarBit, a Dubai-based firm based along with Riccardo Vieri, one other community advertising and marketing specialist concerned in different scams(Centurion and Crypto Community above all), and Luana Sicari, additionally a longtime promoter who counts in her CV the award (along with Vieri) of greatest distributor on this planet for Sisel, one other multi-level scheme. StarBit was within the enterprise of proposing faux crypto tasks, however in actuality it was yet one more inheritor to the not too long ago defunct OneCoin.
In Estonia, Lionetti seems to be the beneficiary of seven firms (all based mostly on the identical deal with), a few of which, given their steadiness sheets, are mere empty bins. Considered one of these, Bitminer Ultradev OÜ, has owed the Estonian tax authorities solely €100 for nearly three years.
In Swag, Giovanni Lionetti is the primary shareholder, holding 63.56% of the shares, akin to €158,892 of paid-up share capital.
The CEO is current within the databases compiled by the Worldwide Consortium of Investigative Journalism as a result of he’s a companion, along with Fiodor Lavagetto (whom we’ll speak about later), of BoomBetz Worldwide LTD and BoomBetz World LTD, two shell firms that seem within the Paradise Papers (listing of tens of millions of suspicious offshore firms that emerged from a 2017 investigation). The 2 firms are linked to the BoomBetz challenge of the identical title, a platform that mixed the world of betting with community advertising and marketing.
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Gabriele Press
A well known face within the Italian crypto sector, in 2017 he based Bitminer Manufacturing facility, the primary firm dealing solely with cryptocurrency mining in our nation. In 2018, he launched the ICO of the BMF token linked to a phantom sustainable mining challenge; the challenge raised $2 million however by no means noticed the sunshine of day. The corporate, which had in the meantime moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina, sues Unicredit for blocking their present accounts linked to the challenge. In 2022, Unicredit owes Bitminer Manufacturing facility €130 million for shedding the lawsuit. In Swag is a companion with € 6,000 of paid-up capital
Fiodor Lloyd Martino Lavagetto
A former poker participant and companion of Lionetti again in 2014 with Boombetz, he additionally seems in Paradise Paper. Founding father of Fretcha, a consulting and coaching firm for mindset and public talking, on the official web site he describes himself as “Born in Community Advertising and marketing, I’ve constructed networks of 1000’s of individuals and helped many individuals realise their goals by growing crucial earnings for them and on the identical time for me”. In Swag he’s a member with € 19325 of paid-up capital.
Francesco Giampieri
Community advertising and marketing knowledgeable, already concerned within the aforementioned Starbit and one other multi-level scheme known as Organogold. In Swag he’s the second companion by paid-up capital with €45 138, on 2 March 2022 he executes a capital improve for €15402 by means of Phoenix Cost LTD, one other firm that seems in Paradise Papers and which is a part of a community of a number of offshore firms opened in Malta.
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Different members and representatives
Different companions embrace Antonio Di Pasquale, a companion of Fiodor Lavagetto in Fratcha, and Ferdinando Campana.
Additionally on the board is the one non-Italian celebration concerned, at the very least from the papers, within the challenge. He’s Aleksandr Škirin, an Estonian and a companion together with Lionetti and Giampieri in different shell firms based mostly in Estonia akin to: Change OÜ and Coin Star OÜ. Aleksandr Škirin, in response to CrunchBase, additionally seems to be the founding father of Midex, a 2018 ICO rip-off challenge.
The place are they and the way do miners make a lot?
Opposite to what one would possibly suppose, the mining actions will not be entrusted to companion Gabriele Stampa’s firm, Bitminer Manufacturing facility. As we be taught on Swag’s official web site, the miner that controls the machines that clients lease is BitRiver, an organization managed by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
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BitRiver was sanctioned by the US in 2022 following the conflict in Ukraine, and is accused of circumventing Western sanctions by means of the usage of cryptocurrency.
The yield that BitRiver’s machines theoretically yield to Swag and its customers is, nevertheless, excessively excessive and never possible, even with probably the most trendy mining gear.
In actual fact, the promised returns vary from 8% (for those who make investments €1,000) to 14% (for those who make investments €50,000). The curiosity paid to buyers is actually excessive in comparison with the logic of the normal market, however not so extreme as to instantly scream rip-off; besides that the returns are assured and the price of renting the machine will likely be reimbursed to the person after one 12 months.
The bundle miner x2 supplies a return of 10.8% each year with full compensation of the 3500€ invested one year after deposit. In actual fact, Swag guarantees free cash if we take the danger of depositing it of their platform for a 12 months.
To present an instance, one of the highly effective mining machines at present in the marketplace, theAntminer S19+ Professional Hyd (which prices €3,600), takes greater than 500 days simply to pay again its funding with Russian vitality prices (the place BitRiver relies). To not point out that when the machine wears out or know-how advances, the yield decreases, so it should be modified sooner or later.
The Mastercard debit card
One other department of Swag is SwaggyBank, the ‘banking division’ of the Estonian firm that sells itself as a digital banking platform with a bodily debit card, cellular app and foreign money trade providers.
As with all Swag merchandise, the positioning is properly performed, and with out an in-depth take a look at SwaggyBank, it could seem to be a conventional fintech service that, thanks additionally to the Mastercard model, makes the entire ecosystem seemingly safer and dependable.
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On nearer inspection, nevertheless, we uncover that SwaggyBank is definitely only a brand utilized on debit playing cards. Swag in actual fact has no banking authorisation and solely manufacturers the merchandise of one other financial institution, SatchelPay UAB. If we learn the privateness coverage, we will see that Swag is just not even the controller of its clients’ knowledge, this too being entrusted to SatchelPay.
We are able to due to this fact state with certainty that SwaggyBank formally doesn’t exist.
Conclusions
Our robust doubts concerning the challenge had been confirmed by our evaluation of the corporate and its elements.
Added to a multi-level community system promoted with occasions and conferences all through Italy is the lower than crystal-clear previous of Swag’s companions and the businesses with which it collaborates. Regardless of this, the OAM continues to maintain the corporate inside its registers, giving it a type of assure of safety and legitimacy in direction of customers. Who, within the meantime, are flocking en masse to the final silence.