Roman Abramovich and former Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Abyzov participated in the ICO Telegram

According to the documents presented in court, the oligarch Roman Abramovich and the former Minister for Coordination of the Russian Federation "Open Government" Mikhail Abyzov participated in the second round of the Telegram ICO.

During the second round of ICO, held in MarchIn 2018, Telegram sold Gram tokens for $ 850 million. According to a document provided by expert Stephen McKeon, Abramovich invested $ 10 million. It is interesting that Telegram itself hired McKeon to analyze the TON blockchain project.

To buy tokens, Gram Abramovich usedNorma Investments Limited own offshore fund registered in the British Virgin Islands. As for Abyzov, he participated in the ICO through the Batios Holdings Limited fund, of which he was a director.

Perhaps the names of Abramovich and Abyzov were not selectedby chance - the Russian oligarch lives in the UK, and Abyzov was taken into custody in March 2019. He is accused of organizing a criminal community and fraud on a particularly large scale.

The document also mentions the Larnabel Foundation.Ventures, owned by the Gutseriev family. The fund invested $ 15 million in Telegram. Earlier it was reported that Gram tokens were bought by Qiwi founder Sergey Solonin and Wimm-Bill-Dann co-founder David Yakobashvili.

In addition to the Russian oligarchs, foreign millionaires also participated in the ICO Telegram. Thus, the operating director of the German payment service Wirecard, Jan Marsalek, invested $ 7 million.

US federal judge recently decided to extendthe prohibition of distributing Gram tokens. A lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Telegram was filed in October last year. SEC believes that Gram tokens are securities, but Telegram does not agree with this statement.