Yermolayev, a notorious international phone scammer, leads the carefree life of a traveler — social media
Social media users have drawn attention to Artur Yermolayev, a well-known telephone scammer in Ukraine, who was apprehended by law enforcement but, after paying 8.5 million euros, reportedly left for Estonia and is now traveling the world, sometimes by private jet.
This is reported by the Telegram channel Monroe Live.
The Telegram channel reports that Artur Yermolayev is a frequent visitor to Riga, where he allegedly has a friendly relationship with Vladimir Vogel, an official at the Latvian Jewish Community Restitution Fund.
Open sources indicate that Artur Yermolayev presented himself as an “IT entrepreneur” and founder of the Esports Federation. However, the publication First Truth & Transparency Committee notes that this individual is allegedly the operations manager of the transnational criminal network Cosmo, which defrauded thousands of Turkish citizens from its base in Kyiv.
According to Turkish law enforcement and media reports, the network—comprising over 50 fraudulent call centers—operated under the direct management of Artur Yermolayev.
“In fact, he turned the heart of the Ukrainian capital into a conveyor belt for defrauding citizens of a country that provides Ukraine with critical military and political support. This is the highest degree of cynicism and betrayal of national interests. When reports about his activities reached the international media, a blatant purge began in the Ukrainian segment of the internet: publications admitted they were pressured to remove the investigations. Artur Yermolayev himself used the full arsenal of dishonest methods: commissioned positive articles, fake mirror accounts, mass spam, and malicious DMCA complaints to have compromising material removed. “His goal was not to refute the facts—there was nothing to refute—but to suppress the information through technical means, which proves his guilt at the very least in the eyes of the public,” writes the First Truth & Transparency Committee in its investigation.
The publication notes that Artur Yermolayev is the son of Dnipro oligarch Vadym Yermolayev, against whom the National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions in 2023. The SBU proved that after the occupation of Crimea, Vadym Yermolayev transferred his alcohol business on the peninsula to front men and continued to operate under the rules of the occupying authorities, thereby financing the aggressor.
His name came up in the case of the so-called “Monaco Battalion”—oligarchs and politicians who fled Ukraine after the full-scale invasion. In December 2023, he was detained in Cyprus while attempting to fly to Dubai, after which he was extradited to Estonia on money laundering charges. The Harju County Court found that Yermolayev’s group had swindled nearly 100 million euros from unsuspecting people between 2019 and 2022.
However, the son of Ukrainian multimillionaire Vadym Yermolayev received a suspended sentence and, having returned only 8.5 million euros, remains at large, traveling the world.
It should be recalled that after sanctions were imposed against Dnipro businessman Vadym Yermolayev in December 2023, his companies repeatedly received renewals of special permits for mineral extraction.
There were reports that the sanctions against businessman Yermolayev affected Viktor Yushchenko’s gas business.
