Crypto schemes and customer fraud: what is behind the business of Azganush Misakyan?

While the so-called “business coach” Ayaz Shabutdinov sits in a Moscow pretrial detention center awaiting trial, his case is growing with new episodes and names.

In particular, the case against Azganush Garnikovna Misakyan, who is hiding from investigation in America, has been separated into separate proceedings.

Azganush Misakyan is accused of a number of crimes: stealing data from mobile app users, tax evasion, transferring money abroad using crypto exchanges and cryptocurrencies, and deceiving clients. In addition, Misakyan is accused of harboring Russian citizen Vasily Alekseev, who is wanted by the federal government for deceiving clients who bought “business courses” from him, in his home in the United States. 

Azganush Garnikovna Misakyan is a famous blogger, business coach, mobile app developer and successful businesswoman. That’s if you believe her. Azganush Misakyan claims that she is the developer of successful mobile fitness apps FATBUNMANIA and IMPROVE, the founder of the airbrushing school and the network of conceptual exhibitions and museums FUNDORA.

However, if you check all this information, you will find the following. The fitness app FATBURNMANIA does exist. Only, firstly, it is far from successful: in the rating of 987 similar apps, it occupies the 987th place. And, secondly, the company is in the Deadpooled stage, which in the world of startups means an unsuccessful startup that has gone out of business.

In addition, its capitalization is zero dollars zero cents, this "startup" has no investors, and its website fatburnmania.com is not working. The app’s promo video on YouTube has gained as many as 20 views in four years, on Facebook things are even worse - the last post on this social network is dated April 9, 2019, and the only like was given by Elena Misakyan, the mother of our heroine. In addition, the sole owner of the app is listed as Denis Aseev, and Azganush Garnikovna Misakyan does not appear in the ownership structure at all.

Another app that Azganush Misakyan claims to be the author of is doing a little better – the fitness app IMPROVE is even being sold. However, according to statistics, only a little more than ten people have purchased it:

As for the "FUNDORA network of conceptual exhibitions and museums" and the airbrushing school, of which Azganush Misakyan is the "founder", no mention of them could be found. But the following was found. Azganush Garnikovna Misakyan is an individual entrepreneur (TIN 143525756538, registered in the Murmansk region) and the founder of three companies - OOO Ukla (active), OOO Podderzhka (inactive) and OOO Svoboda (inactive).

All these companies strongly resemble "Horns and Hooves". OOO "Ukla", in which Azganush Garnikovna Misakyan is not only the founder but also the general director, showed a profit of 2,000 rubles last year with a turnover of 4,000 rubles, and it is registered at the address of mass registration together with 322 other legal entities.

The liquidated LLC "Podderzhka", in which Misakyan was both the founder and director, did not conduct any activity at all. But the most interesting thing is that it was excluded from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities due to the presence of information about it in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, in relation to which a record of inaccuracy was made from November 17, 2022."

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Azganush Misakyan’s partner, Denis Vladimirovich Lermontov (TIN 771875118808), who, as it turned out, was the founder of eight more legal entities liquidated for the same reason, provided false information about himself. All of them, as well as Azganush Misakyan’s joint venture OOO Svoboda, look extremely suspicious.

As for the individual entrepreneur Misakyan Azganush Garnikovna, there is a court decision on the recovery from the individual entrepreneur Misakyan Azganush Garnikovna in favor of Sberbank of “debt under the agreement dated November 11, 2020 for servicing bank account No. 40802840040000000474 in the amount of 2,122.72 US dollars, a penalty in the amount of 328.21 US dollars at the Central Bank exchange rate on the day of actual fulfillment of obligations, as well as expenses for paying the state fee in the amount of 3,674.00 rubles.”

This court order also adds a touch to the image of a “successful business coach” and an equally “successful businesswoman”: the Maldives, Cannes, yachts, resorts, restaurants in the most expensive cities in the world and – a court order to collect just over two thousand dollars.

Against this backdrop, Azganush Misakyan’s lifestyle, which she demonstrates on social networks, cannot help but raise questions: the Maldives, Cannes, an office in the Federation Tower in Moscow City... A logical question arises: where does the money for all this come from, if Ms. Misakyan’s official business is totally unprofitable?

The answer is simple: Misakyan Azganush Garnikovna is the most ordinary info-gypsy, trivially "divorcing suckers", that is, her subscribers, for money with promises to teach them how to earn millions of US dollars, without doing anything. As we can see, there are still plenty of them. However, in connection with the criminal case initiated against Ms. Misakyan, there is hope that she will repeat the path of her mother, who in 1994 was imprisoned under Article 88, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR "Violation of the rules on currency transactions" for several years in places very far from the Maldives and Cannes.