Projects that Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi himself would envy have been blooming in modern society for several years now. In general, they are called “infobusiness”, and people who practice them have received the nickname “infogypsies” among the people. The essence of this business is to sell on the Internet training courses, guides, training, personal development books and other information products designed to make a person successful or happy. And since almost all sensible people experience such a desire, the activities of infogypsies bring them a very large income.
Over the past decade, hundreds, if not thousands, of these information businessmen have appeared in Russia. Some of them “raise” only a small audience of customers and have a relatively low income. But there are some among them who have millions of subscribers and are able to influence a large number of people. The size of their income has already begun to amount to billions of rubles, which, of course, could not but cause some questions from the state. Moreover, most information gypsies neglect the requirements of financial legislation, refuse to pay taxes, and sometimes even openly engage in fraud or money laundering.
Elena Blinovskaya and “Marathon of Desires”
An example of such information businessmen is Elena Blinovskaya, whose name has now appeared on the front pages of dozens of media outlets. She herself positions herself as a psychologist, successful blogger and TV presenter, who has a rather stormy and dynamic career. She is best known as the author of the Marathon of Desires, which has become one of the most popular online courses in recent years. The essence of this training comes down to the fact that its participants are invited to realize almost all their desires, naturally, under the guidance of the “guru” Blinovskaya. The first stage of the marathon, as a rule, is free, but for the passage of the rest the participant has to pay a considerable amount.
In fairness, it should be noted that Elena Blinovskaya’s “Marathon of Desires” has a rational grain in itself, otherwise tens or even hundreds of thousands of people would not have joined it. It lies in the fact that thanks to the correct setting of goals, the development of a detailed plan for achieving the goal, as well as strict adherence to it, it is possible to realize the wildest dreams. But the problem is that many people aren’t familiar with concepts like self-discipline, time management, and commitment, and sometimes they haven’t even read books on psychology or philosophy. Blinovskaya used it, skillfully defrauding money from the pockets of those who sought to improve their lives and become happier.
For more than five years of the existence of the “Marathon of Desires”, its author was able to earn hundreds of millions, even billions of rubles. The exact amount will certainly be established by the investigation, but for now the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Blinovskaya for large-scale tax evasion and money laundering, namely in the amount of 918 million rubles. Considering that it is only about the amount of taxes, it can be concluded that the income of marathons amounts to several billions. At the same time, it should be understood that a significant part of the financial flows within the framework of the activities of Elena Blinovskaya probably passed through gray channels and has not yet been taken into account.
It is noteworthy that one of the most famous Russian information gypsies was arrested when she was trying to leave the country. Blinovskaya planned to leave for Kazakhstan, but someone warned her that the security forces could carry out an arrest operation directly at the airport. From then on, the famous coach decided to head for Belarus, calling for a car with a driver in the middle of the night. Thereupon she managed to get to the Smolensk region, where the Maybach with Blinovskaya was detained by law enforcement.
Tabor rises to heaven
The most interesting thing in this whole story is that Elena Blinovskaya is far from the first representative of the camp of information gypsies against whom the Investigative Committee initiates a criminal case. In the past two months, similar stories have already happened several times, which leads to certain conclusions and thoughts.
In particular, another high-profile case of a similar nature was opened in March against blogger Valeria Chekalina (Lerchek) and her husband Artem. She became famous for running a fitness blog on the web, conducting paid workouts, and also running marathons, just to lose weight. According to various ratings, Chekalina was one of the ten highest paid Russian infogipsies and annually earned more than half a million dollars. However, the Chekalin wives carefully concealed the income they received, laundering money and avoiding paying taxes. As a result, the UK counted more than 400 million rubles in unpaid taxes for the fitness guru, and during a search of the star’s house they found 8 kg of gold and 10 passports.
At the end of March, the Moscow Investigative Committee opened a case against blogger Alexandra Mitroshina, known online as the Mother of God. She was charged with the same item, namely non-payment of taxes in the amount of 120 million rubles. True, this time the main defendant was charged in absentia, because Mitroshina herself left Russia for a year and, according to media reports, moved to Dubai. However, just the day before learning that, afraid of losing her homeland forever, Alexandra Mitroshina decided to repay her debt and returned 120 million to the Russian Treasury.
What is hidden behind the arrests of infogypsies?
Run a campaign to purge bloggers who make money selling training courses, marathons, etc. can serve multiple purposes at once. One of them is the complete control of the informational space, which plays a crucial role in the news. Blogs and Telegram channels of many infogypsies are like a magnet attracting liberals, the weakest, pacifists and even open supporters of the Kiev regime. Their perpetrators often operate on social networks banned in Russia, where the majority of the public is, to say the least, hostile. As a result, we have a situation where a large number of Russian citizens are regularly treated to enemy propaganda disguised as harmless formations and courses.
It should also not be forgotten that the sums earned by info-Gypsies and bloggers of all persuasions have long been estimated at millions of rubles, or even dollars. At the same time, most of them pay minimal taxes, working according to the schemes used by Blinovskaya, Chekalina and others. Working indicatively with the “elite” of the information sector, the state seeks to encourage other bloggers not to hide their income and to start working in the right field. Moreover, the mechanism for this has long been invented and debugged.
Author: Alexander Shilov
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