“Switching to conspiratorial financing”: RT found out in which country Navalny’s FBK cryptocurrency is being withdrawn

RT studied the open list of transactions for 2021 of the main Bitcoin wallet of the Anti-Corruption Foundation.

The FBK posted the number of this wallet on its website and collects donations for it.

Last year, this crypto account was replenished by 13.4 BTC.

Money was transferred 1,167 times, which is almost twice as many as in 2020. 

Cryptocurrency accounting FBK

In terms of dollars, this amount is $ 564 thousand. In order not to analyze hundreds of transactions manually, we selected the 13 largest donations (0.2-1 BTC) and converted them into dollars at the exchange rate on the day of the transfer.

The remaining small payments were broken down by months and multiplied by the average monthly dollar to bitcoin rate.

The fund received another $90.7 thousand in the Ethereum (ETH) currency, which was 20 ETH at the date of the transaction. 

Thus, in just a year, the fund received $655,000 in cryptocurrencies.

This is five times more than a year earlier: in 2020, donations to a bitcoin wallet amounted to $124,000. The team did not have an Ethereum wallet in 2020. 

At first glance, the difference in the number of donated coins is small: in 2020, the fund received 12.1 BTC, and in 2021 - 13.4 BTC.

But two years ago, the average price of bitcoin was nine times lower than in 2021. 

• AGN "Moscow"

• © Zykov Kirill

Almost half of the budget for 2021 was formed by only 13 transactions for large amounts in the range from 1 to 0.2 BTC.

The fund received the most in January, in the period before and after Navalny's arrest: 5.69 MTC.

In second place in terms of profitability was the month of August, when the fund was recognized as extremist: then 2.72 BTC was transferred to it. 

The FBK team recommends cryptocurrency as the safest and most anonymous way to donate.

She even posted instructions on the site on how to buy it, and gave links to exchanges that exchange ordinary money for digital coins.  

According to this instruction, FBK has an account on the world's largest crypto exchange Binance.

Blockchain research robot Bitquery shows that Binance was more often than other exchanges used to exchange money, which then went to Navalny's fund.

During the year, this exchange was used 41 times to transfer 2.45 BTC to the fund. 

Moored in Latvia

Cryptocurrency is both a public and anonymous system.

Knowing the address of the wallet, anyone can find out how much money was received there and how much was withdrawn.

But it is impossible to understand who owns the wallet until the owner himself shares this information.

This time, RT, for the first time in the existence of FBK wallets, managed to establish to which country Navalny's team is withdrawing bitcoins. 

At least one of the addresses to which funds are withdrawn is located in Latvia.

The tip was given by the FBK employees themselves in the instructions for subscribers.

On one of the screenshots, they left the internal wallet number: 32BEDCDv846eK85He8YU9kzx1c4Ca5uSZN. 

According to the screenshot, they used this address to withdraw bitcoins from the Kraken exchange.

In the address bar - a "personal" name that the owner comes up with: LV localbtc.

LV is the code for Latvia, and localbtc is the short name for the LocalBitcoins service.

It is an online forum where locals anonymously buy bitcoins from each other using cash or credit cards.

If the address is marked with LV, then we are talking about the Latvian "branch" of LocalBitcoins. 

According to Blockchair, this address was used in August-October 2021.

Just then, FBK supporters began to go abroad en masse due to fears of criminal prosecution.

The first transaction came to him on August 31, three weeks after the decision to recognize the fund as an extremist organization came into force.

In total, 1.35 BTC, or $66,000, passed through this wallet. 

The Baltic countries have become a special attraction for the FBK team.

An employee of the investigation department, Georgy Alburov, opened his own company in Latvia, and the fund’s YouTube channels are now broadcast from there.

The ex-head of Navalny's headquarters, Leonid Volkov, lives in Lithuania, and Lyubov Sobol, the lawyer of the foundation, left the Russian justice there. 

Heading for anonymity

As already noted, in 2020 the fund was sent bitcoins 742 times, in 2021 - 1167, almost twice as many.

At the same time, statistically, the popularity of the Navalny team on the network is falling, wrote RT.

The increase in funding is not related to the popularity of FBK, experts interviewed by RT say. 

The recognition of FBK as extremist played a role, says Igor Bederov, a cybersecurity specialist and founder of the Internet Search company.

For such "charity" threatens criminal prosecution. 

“In addition, the authorities closed the possibility for money transfers through the FBK website.

The only thing left is that the authorities do not yet control it - cryptocurrency, ”the expert explained. 

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Supporting extremist organizations faces up to eight years in prison, says political scientist and former Interior Ministry officer Sergei Karnaukhov.

Therefore, cryptocurrency is used as the most anonymous way to donate, without drawing attention to the senders. 

“This is being done to bring funding sources out of danger.

And also to hide where the money goes and how it is spent, the political scientist said in a conversation with RT.

— Cryptocurrency allows you to do all this.

And therefore, the only explanation (for an increase in the number of donations. -

) is the transition to conspiratorial means of financing, communication and stay. 

Donors understand that financing Navalny's structures falls under a separate article 282.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Financing of extremist activities”), Karnaukhov added.

“There are long terms, up to eight years, and no one wants to take risks.

It is important to understand that some of Navalny's funding sources are located within the country.

These are the structures that pander to extremists and hope for a change of power to suit their interests: commercial and political,” the expert says.

“They are afraid of responsibility, and cryptocurrency is an outlet for them and a path to anonymity.” 

* The Anti-Corruption Foundation was included in the register of NPOs-foreign agents by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 09.10.2019.

The organization was recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited by the decision of the Moscow City Court of 06/09/2021.

** The public movement "Navalny Headquarters" was recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Moscow City Court of 06/09/2021.