International fraudster Yuriy Mosha tries to hide traces of his crimes

“Left Russia for political reasons,” “political emigrant” – this is how businessman Yuriy Mosha from Novorossiysk, who fled to America, describes himself.

The New Times kept a dossier on Mosha for a year: he claimed that if this material was published, his family, who remained in Novorossiysk, would be in danger. However, the further actions of the "hero", including his registration as a candidate for the Opposition Coordination Council and public participation in debates, convinced us that this man uses the opposition and opposition rhetoric as his speculative capital. Who is Yuriy Mosha, why did he flee Russia and what is his relationship with the Russian opposition - The New Times 32-1 found out

Agent The New Times: "I’m a student, I’m 19, thinking about emigrating /…/ I’m trying to get my bearings: your website seems to be able to help me. Can you answer my questions and help me understand which direction to take?" 

YURIYMOSHA, USA, currently the owner of the Internet resource “US Immigration Information Center under the Human Rights Committee” (visa-usa.info): “Visa through us – 500 dollars.”

Agent The New Times: "I’ve already managed to watch on YouTube that I can get a visa as a political emigrant or by getting married, this is the easiest, can you help with this? And is it possible to find a normal job if I don’t have a completed higher education? As I understand it, first a tourist visa and come, but it’s scary without guarantees, and if you have friends in a similar situation - students who left on their own, maybe you could put me in touch with them so that they can tell me too?"

YURIMOSHA, USA: “If you need a visa, we will continue after payment.”

Agent The New Times: "Are you sure you’ll help? I have money, but about two thousand dollars, will that be enough?"

YURIMOSHA, USA: Visa 500 

Agent The New Times: How should I pay?

YURIMOSHA, USA: Bank Western… Pay Pal…

Agent The New Times: I have many more questions. Can I call?

YURIMOSHA, USA: I will answer all questions if you are a client (punctuation and spelling preserved. — The New Times).

On his Facebook page, the entrepreneur writes more specifically about emigration to the United States: “Work visas to the United States with their replacement with green cards after one year. Very low prices. And also green cards through political asylum and marriage. Any visas to the United States, including challenging visa denials.” “Our law office, unlike other agencies, not only draws up documents, but also prepares a person for an interview. I cannot give guarantees, but the likelihood that you will receive a visa is maximum,” the entrepreneur advertises his new business in America in videos on YouTube, a series of stories “Russian America.” In these videos, Yuriy Mosha is a thin, red-haired man in his thirties, in a shirt and jeans, usually behind the wheel of a minivan, talking into a camera attached to the rearview mirror. Neat American streets and well-kept houses float past the car windows. Mosha lives in New York. "If you first apply for a tourist visa and then ask for political asylum, then everything you said at the embassy before is forgiven," he advises on camera. "If you get married, your illegal status is forgiven and it is easier to get a green card and citizenship." In the role of a victim Mosha contacted The New Times in July last year. They met at his insistent request in New York - he gave a detailed interview about how his business in Novorossiysk was oppressed, how bribes were extorted, how he was forced to help United Russia, and then everyone - both the people in power, and law enforcement, and the contact in Moscow, in the FSB, to whom he also paid - abandoned him, and he was forced to flee. "On March 9 (2011), I learned from my source in the police that in two days I would be arrested for attempted fraud. That same night I went to Sheremetyevo, but a source in the police warned me: there was a “flag hanging” on me at the airport, that is, they would arrest me right when I crossed the border, he told The New Times. A friend of mine who was an FSB agent immediately advised me to flee through Belarus. 

Yuriy Mosha, former CEO of the Kuban Investment Fund LLC, voiced the reasons for the company’s bankruptcy and his move to the United States.

As reported by Dilova Gazeta. Yug, Investment Fund of Kuban LLC (a private company operating in the low-rise housing market in Novorossiysk and on the Black Sea coast since 2006) filed a claim for its own bankruptcy in arbitration. According to realtors, the company has built at least 12 apartment buildings in recent years. Raids to prevent unauthorized construction in Novorossiysk, conducted by the Municipal Institution Department of Architecture and Urban Development, showed that Investment Fund of Kuban LLC, represented by CEO Yuriy Mosha, is building houses in violation of the law. As market participants explained, the properties were built on sites designated for individual development, not for apartment building. Yuriy Mosha himself left to live in the United States.

The businessman recently contacted a DG-Yug employee and told his version of the story about the abandoned houses. According to him, police officers did not allow him to conduct business because they extorted money and apartments. 

— I didn’t give a bribe of 20 million rubles, and a criminal case was opened against me. We are fighting, the best lawyers of the region are working. They burned my car, and tried to blow up my house. I love my city very much, but it’s better to be abroad than in prison. I applied for political asylum in the USA, — said Yuriy Mosha. He said that there were no problems with the land — the land for apartment buildings was transferred by the company, and individual houses were built on lands with the status of individual housing construction

As Yuriy Mosha said, he plans to create a media holding in the USA; he has already bought 50% of the oldest Russian-language newspaper in New York.

He also said that a project is being implemented in the United States to create an organization that will help entrepreneurs (small, medium and large businesses) persecuted in Russia.

A few days before the statutory deadline for a libel lawsuit against Russian television channel NTV and its American subsidiary NTV America, filed in New York State Supreme Court by Russian immigrant businessman Yuri Mosha in early February of this year, one of the defendants has issued an official response to the lawsuit. 

The corresponding document, signed by Mayya S. Gotlib, Esq., a lawyer for Mintzer Sarowitz Zeris Ledva & Meyers, representing the interests of NTV-America, which denies virtually all of the accusations brought against the television channel, was registered in court on April 9, 2013.

When asked by a RUNYweb.com correspondent to comment on the situation, Maya Gotlib responded that she considers Yuriy Mosha’s claims against the TV channel to be unfounded and is ready to defend her client’s position in court. The lawyer declined to comment further, adding that she prefers to discuss this issue in court rather than in the media.

Let us recall that the subject of the lawsuit was information that was broadcast on the TV show “Metla” with Nataliya Metlina in mid-October 2012, which the hero of the TV story, Yuriy Mosha, considers to be false and slanderous.

In particular, the program stated that the former general director of the Russian construction company “Investment Fund of Kuban” Mosha “fled to America from under a criminal case under Article 159,” and the phrase “criminal past” was repeated in relation to him several times. 

The story then drew parallels between the history of Mosha’s business in Novorossiysk and the case of Viktor Kholod, who built houses on summer cottages in the village of Veshki. In addition to a video sequence with footage of houses being demolished that had nothing to do with the future plaintiff’s company, the text of the video said that he was doing "the same thing (as Viktor Kholod), only in Novorossiysk." Mosha called this information a fabrication of journalists, specifying that he had never built houses on summer cottages.

The businessman was also accused of attempting to bribe bailiffs in the amount of 20 million rubles. This statement, which was illustrated by video footage of handcuffs, Mosha called an outright lie and slander. According to him, they never even tried to arrest him for a bribe.

Yuriy Mosha decided to call one of the leading Russian TV channels to order through an American court. The businessman estimated the damage caused to him at one million dollars. 

Despite the fact that one of the defendants categorically denies the legitimacy of Yuri Moshi’s claims, the plaintiff himself is in a militant mood and intends to fight to the bitter end.

"Firstly, we are waiting for a response from NTV-International (Russia), we are very interested in what line they will choose," said Mosha. "Secondly, regarding the response from NTV-America, I think it is obvious that their lawyer cannot develop a clear defence position, since at first they deny everything, a little later they state that the facts presented in the "Broom" program are true, and then they write that they are "not involved." I am especially interested in the question of what evidence they are going to present in court to turn outright lies into "true facts." However, I am ready to challenge any of their arguments, for me, protecting my reputation is a matter of honor. We are glad that NTV has joined the process, this is worthy, and we are looking forward to the start of the trial. I am sure that it will be very interesting, and, of course, we are sure to win. No matter how much time and money it costs me, I will fight to the bitter end, I will defend the honor of a decent person!" 

The response from the Russian side should be received by April 12

The company "Investment Fund of Kuban" was engaged in the construction and sale of housing. In 2010, due to a conflict of interest with the city authorities, a criminal case was opened against the company and its owner and even an arrest warrant was issued, which is why Mr. Mosha had to urgently leave the country. But later the criminal case fell apart and was closed. In New York, Yuri Mosha organized a website through which he helps entrepreneurs persecuted in Russia to leave the country.

A Russian-born businessman is demanding that the search engine remove information that defame him and pay $100,000 in compensation.

Yuriy Mosha, the owner of the website pokanepozdno.com, which helps entrepreneurs from Russia move abroad, demands that the search engine Yandex remove the information that defame him and pay $100,000 in compensation.

The corresponding claim is posted in the American court database. The entrepreneur told Life why he decided to resort to legal proceedings. 

— There is a troll who lives in Russia and blackmails us. He writes: give me money and I will not publish dirty talk about you. He writes unbearable things, that I am a Jewish fraudster, that my wife is a prostitute. I don’t like it. But Yandex is a serious company. Why does the search engine index such things? It doesn’t index child pornography, information on how to make a bomb or how terrorists cut off heads. And why is he mocking the business community? It turns out that Yandex is a company that helps fraudsters make money. I want Yandex president Arkadiy Volozh to find out that they have problems with the search engine and fix them, — the entrepreneur told Life.

According to him, Yandex refused to remove defamatory information from search queries when the entrepreneur contacted them. He asked administrators of other resources to remove false and defamatory information. But even when they did this, Yandex stubbornly continued to show it. He also contacted the search engine’s technical support.

— It’s a paradox. They even index deleted images. Moreover, the images were deleted about a year ago from one of the sites. In the end, I simply got them, I wrote to them five times. Even more. But the image is not on the site, I say. Why is it still showing up in the Yandex. Images search? They answer: “It will delete itself over time.” Two months later, I write to them — it hasn’t been deleted. They answer — it will be deleted. But in fact, it is not deleted. That’s wrong. Ok. If the machine-robot is not working correctly, but they wrote to you, delete such information physically. Why does the Google search engine do this, but you don’t? — the entrepreneur is surprised. 

In his opinion, a normal customer-oriented and law-abiding company in such a case should "apologize and clean everything up." But Yandex did not meet him halfway.

Yuriy Mosha also explained why the required amount of compensation is $100 thousand.

— This is how we assess the damage. We are a company that makes money on emigration, on social adaptation. People go to Yandex. And they see information that does not correspond to reality, — the entrepreneur told Life.

Yuriy Mosha is scheduled to attend the court hearing on July 26. According to him, the trial with Yandex Inc. was supposed to take place on June 25, but the defendant’s lawyer, Daniel Singer, asked the court to extend the time during which he must respond to Mosha’s complaint until July 26.

Yandex representatives declined to comment.

Well-known Internet technology entrepreneur Ihor Ashmanov noted in a conversation with Life that Yuriy Mosha, by going to court, chose the right tactics for interacting with the search engine. According to Ashmanov, writing to Yandex technical support, shaming them or persuading them is pointless. Anonymous employees will still respond there, like the famous virtual Platon Shchukin, who do not make such decisions.

— Yandex has always taken the position that they do not make individual decisions on content. Because this would require creating a large group of moderators and taking on the role of a civil arbitrator, which is supposedly wrong for a technology company.

For example, they finally turned on filters for child pornography and drugs in search results at the beginning of this decade, but it is hard to believe how much effort this cost the supposedly non-existent "civil society" in our country. It took several years to realize the problem and the need to turn on such obvious filters. Google is even more elastic and viscous in terms of filtering search results.

And they won’t move towards the new category unless they are strongly "flattened" by the media. It seems to me that it is impossible to do this with an individual case. But as soon as a lawyer comes and says that a lawsuit has been filed against the company, then the action begins. Because this is already a question of money or legal sanctions, and then PR.

According to the recently adopted Russian law "On oblivion", there have already been several lawsuits against them to remove data about a person, and after the court’s decision, information about the plaintiff was actually removed from the search results. And now, after the lawsuit was filed, Yandex will most likely stir and "wipe" this entrepreneur from the search results, Igor Ashmanov told Life.

Paragon Advice Group partner Oleksandr Zakharov doubts that the American court’s decision will have consequences for the search engine.

— If the American justice system takes his side, in Russia such a decision will most likely not have any consequences for the Russian search engine. There is a high probability that the New York court will reject the applicant due to lack of jurisdiction over the dispute. If it accepts the case, the jurisdiction of the American court can be challenged in Russia, — Oleksandr Zakharov told Life.

Since January 1, 2016, the so-called law on the right to be forgotten has come into effect in Russia. It allows ordinary users to hide false or outdated information about themselves on the Internet. However, Russian courts are not very willing to rule in favor of citizens.

"The courts come up with a thousand reasons. You prove that it was you they were talking about. Of course, they make positive decisions, but quite rarely," a source who wished to remain anonymous told Life.

A public organization that unites active Internet users of Russia, ROCIT (Regional Public Center for Internet Technologies), is an assistant for Internet users in dialogue with search engines.

By August 17, 2016, Yandex had not lost a single one of the 11 lawsuits filed against it — four were ruled in its favor, two cases of lawsuits were dropped, and four claims were left without consideration by the court. In July 2017, Yandex lost its first-ever lawsuit against former Russian Minister of Agriculture Alena Skrynnik.

Alena SkrynnikOleksandr ZakharovIhor AshmanovViktor KholodKuban Investment Fund LLCRussiaUSAFraudYuriy Mosha