Thursday, November 21, 2024

Update: Russian High-Risk Payment Processor AdvCash And Its Mercuryo Connection!

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Advcash is a notorious high-risk payment processor operated through Belize-registered Advanced Cash Limited. According to whistleblower information, it is controlled by Russians and operated through Gibraltar. Between Aug to Oct 2022, more than 4.3 million people visited the website, of which almost 22% were from Russia. Advcash works closely with crypto payment processor Mercuryo, also controlled by Russians. That’s where nearly 60% of Advcash‘s outgoing links go. Here’s an update.

Key Data

Trading nameAdvcash
Business activityPayment processor and
e-wallet provider
Domainshttps://advcash.com
https://adv-project.com
Legal entityAdvanced Cash Limited
ADV Project Limited
JurisdictionBelize
RegulatorBelize Financial Services Commission (FSC),
licenses MT 000107/97, PPS 000107/98.
Related individualsYaacov Bitton (LinkedIn)
Artem Abramov
Artem Shulepov
Max Eirich
PayRate42 Advcash profile on PayRate42 (orange)
Partner schemesMercuryo (PayRate42 profile)

Short Narrative

Over the last three years, we have found Advcash in many illegal broker activities as a payment processor. These included scams and illegal offshore activities of regulated brokers (mostly CySEC-regulated). Advcash, like Perfect Money or Garantex, is closely connected to the Russian market, merchants, and consumers.

Similarweb statistics for Advcash
Similarweb statistics for Advcash

According to the documents available, Artem Abramov and Artem Shulepov Russians are supposed to be the beneficial owners of the Advcash scheme of which the Gibraltar-registered ADV Projekt Limited, a fintech solution provider, is said to be part. The Gibraltar entity was established in 2013 and, until March 2022, was controlled by Artem Shulepov. Since then, the German Max Eirich has appeared as the beneficial owner of the Gibraltar Entity.

The Similarweb Data

The latest Similarweb statistics (Aug to Oct 2022) show that more than 23% of the 1.5 million visits come from Russia. The average time spent on the site is over 10 minutes, which suggests that these visitors make large payment transactions and do not just visit the site for a short time.

Advcash sends traffic to mercuryo

We do not claim at this point that Russian activities via Advcash violate Western sanctions, laws, or regulatory frameworks.

In the last 28 days, more than 63% of outgoing links have gone from Advcash to crypto payment processor Mercuryo. There, the referral traffic from Advcash accounted for almost 50% of the total referral traffic. This data suggests that the two Russia-dominated payment processors are cooperating very closely.

Read more reports on Mercuryo here.

Share Information

If you have any information about Advcash, Mercuryo, their merchants, and its activities, please share it with us via our whistleblower system, Whistle42.