Crypto investor and partner of actor Pavel Derevyanko sentenced to six years in prison., 2026/03/18 13:34:36

A Moscow court has delivered a verdict against crypto investor Grigory Muluzyan, finding him guilty of large-scale fraud and sentencing him to six years in a general regime penal colony. Among the victims is actor Pavel Derevyanko.

According to the investigation, from December 2021 to January 2023, Muluzyan, posing as a cryptocurrency investment expert, deceived four individuals. He proposed that they invest their funds in high-yield instruments within the digital asset market.

The victims transferred money during in-person meetings at the Moscow-City business center or sent it to bank accounts specified by Muluzyan, as stated in the court ruling. Initially, the future defendant paid his clients interest, but later ceased payments and misappropriated the funds. The total loss incurred by the investors is estimated at 120 million rubles.

In addition to Derevyanko, the victims include actor Artem Tkachenko, director Marius Weisberg, boxer Alexey Semykin, and an unnamed couple from Moscow.

In 2023, Pavel Derevyanko publicly claimed that he had fallen victim to fraud by his former business partner Grigory Muluzyan. The actor asserted that the matter involved crypto investments. This statement followed reports in various media and Telegram channels indicating that a police complaint had been filed against Derevyanko, accusing him of fraud. The complaint was lodged by entrepreneur Sergey Nikolenko, who had invested in the crypto company “Bii Soul,” co-owned by the actor. Nikolenko recounted that from September 2022 to May 2023, he entered into three loan agreements with Derevyanko and Muluzyan but received neither profit nor the principal amount back.

According to the actor’s lawyers, in October 2021, Derevyanko met Muluzyan, who presented himself as a successful crypto businessman. The actor invested his personal savings into Muluzyan’s business and, upon the advice of this new acquaintance, took a loan of 150.536 million rubles from Sergey Nikolenko. Nikolenko handed over the entire amount in cash to Muluzyan and Derevyanko without any collateral or formal loan agreements, as claimed by the actor during the investigation. He also stated that Muluzyan persuaded him to take out additional loans from four banks totaling 56 million rubles. The actor transferred this money to Muluzyan as well, according to his testimony.

A criminal case under part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code was initiated against Muluzyan in September 2023. A year later, the defendant was placed under arrest. In October 2025, the accused partially admitted his guilt and began to compensate the victims for their losses. At that time, the preliminary amount of damage was estimated at 400 million rubles, suggesting the possibility of other incidents or victims not mentioned in the verdict.