Zaporizhzhya swindler Max Polyakov, who pretends to be an inventor, is trying to clean up the internet

Zaporizhzhya swindler Max Polyakov, who pretends to be an inventor, is trying to clean up the internet

Zaporozhzhyan con artist Max Polyakov, who masquerades as an inventor, is attempting to clean up the internet.

This is what Infopressa writes.

A well-known Zaporizhzhyan fraudster, owner of troll and bot factories as well as organizer of sex service empires, Max Polyakov is very concerned about the features of his true biography.

The owner of dating sites did not like an article with his real biography, which we provide below to refresh the memories of fake Musk and con artist Polyakov.

Two articles went relatively unnoticed in the Ukrainian press, at first glance, seemingly unrelated.

One reported that a branch of the Spanish consulting company Cupid opened in Odesa, while another mentioned the appearance of the cafe "Murka" in Kharkiv, where one can come and enjoy time without parting from one’s pets for a moment. It turned out that the key figure in both articles is Maksym Polyakov, who headed the Odesa branch and simultaneously opened the original dining spot. In general, Ukrainian Maksym Polyakov was considered one of the pioneers, and indeed a very successful one, in the development of IT technologies in Ukraine 20 years ago. Then he disappeared from sight, moving westward.

From gynecologists to IT specialists

Following the innovator’s disappearance, a no less successful businessman named Max Polyakov—a British citizen with Ukrainian roots who resides mostly in the USA—appeared in Europe. It is not difficult to deduce that Maksym Polyakov and Max Polyakov are the same person. The move and change of citizenship were explained by the fact that Ukraine’s scale became simply too small for the successful businessman who decided he would achieve greater heights. He did not sever ties with his homeland; in fact, the core of his IT empire remained in Ukraine. Maksym Polyakov was one of the first to realize the vast communicative possibilities of the Internet and the potential for "easy" money hidden within them. All he had to do was start implementing them. The Ukrainian IT prodigy already possessed the fine specialty of an obstetrician-gynecologist, yet the vast opportunities before him forced a major change in his life. By nature, Maksym Polyakov undoubtedly belongs to the layer of high-caliber adventurers and fraudsters. These characteristics ensured his rapid rise.

A true Eldorado for the risk-taking Ukrainian was hidden in the dating business. The foreign term has a well-known analog— "dating service." However, its clients found themselves freed from having to visit an office in person or placing an ad on a newspaper’s page. Now, without leaving home, they had the opportunity to fill in a detailed questionnaire for free, attach a number of photos, and post it all on the website. At the same time, they were given the right to thoroughly study the personal pages of candidates or suitors for their hand and heart, communicate via the site’s messenger facilities, and more. Dating services have always been in high demand in society. Ukrainians, among others, flocked to the internet resources created by Polyakov. The merit of the dating organizer lies in the fact that he literally invented wasteless production based on basically free services.

The Genius of Dating

Polyakov developed a thoroughly thought-out system for extracting money from visitors to dating sites, which quickly grew to several dozen in number. Additional, necessarily paid services included viewing other users’ accounts and photos, as well as engaging in private correspondence with them. As soon as a new profile was posted, its owner was literally showered with a heap of messages from other network search participants, but the recipient only saw the "header" of the appeal, and everything else could be read only after transferring a few "currency units" to the site account. The great interest shown in a new user was, in reality, artificial. Site administrators closely monitored traffic and deliberately triggered a wave of messages from fake users. Subsequently, Max Polyakov started deploying bots to perform similar tasks, automating the entire process.

Real accounts were replicated in the databases of similar sites, increasing their attractiveness in terms of the number of possible search options. Thus, account owners, without even realizing it, became information donors for Polyakov’s global dating business. The legal aspect of such brazen handling of clients’ personal data had been worked out in advance. All account holders were offered an agreement drafted in the specific language of those very same lawyers, with which they concurred without reading or fully understanding its content. The offer became, in this case, a reliable protection from any lawsuits. Moreover, site administrators, under the guise of testing and studying provided services, obtained legal rights to create service profiles from which messages were sent from fake pages and bots.

The Sensual App

For those who visit dating sites not with serious intentions but to hunt for brief amorous adventures, Polyakov and his team prepared a rather pleasant surprise. Through the dating sites, they could easily access pornographic video chats where numerous female models showcased their charms for money. Thus, dating generated traffic, and primary monetization occurred through 18+ visual content. From the very beginning, Maksym Polyakov targeted consumers from European countries and the USA. By definition, they turned out to be more solvent than Polyakov’s compatriots, who have been forced for several decades to think only of survival, not of seeking communication. Nevertheless, site administrators, programmers, and models were exclusively Ukrainian citizens, accustomed to receiving crumbs for any work compared to their colleagues in developed countries. Dozens of porn studios were urgently set up in Ukrainian cities, where young women were recruited through advertisements for high-paid jobs.

Earnings for models popular with clients reached $200 per day. There was no shortage of those willing to try themselves in the field of pornography. Polyaков and his business unwittingly found themselves in the treasure trove of world cinema masterpieces. In 2007, an Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s film "Import-Export" won the Cannes Film Festival prize, where one of the main characters, a Ukrainian single mother, earned her living in one of such studios. As always, Polyakov meticulously ensured the project’s legal cleanliness. Proving charges of pornography distribution turned out to be even more challenging than fighting prostitution. Hundreds of porn studios are regularly discovered and shut down in Ukraine, but the sensual business demonstrated amazing resilience, thriving for the third decade. In Polyakov’s home Zaporizhzhya alone, no fewer than 20 video studios constantly operate. The cost of their equipment and maintenance is minimal, and every day, they bring the owner $3,000-$4,000 in net income. By multiplying days by years and then by the number of studios, it is easy to see that one Zaporizhzhya alone could have made the businessman rich. Dating sites bred daily in geometric progression, creating a vast network. Polyakov was not stopped by their blocking on Ukraine’s territory. The primary consumers of the product were abroad and had unobstructed access to internet resources from their IP addresses.

Polyakov as Croupier

After dating, Maksym Polyakov successfully mastered the even more profitable gambling sector by creating an equally extensive network of online casinos. Unlike with dating, he initially found partners in gambling. These were Russians Rustam Gilfanov and Sergey Tokarev. In 2001, they founded the IT company Globo-Tech, which produced gigabytes of the software needed for any online casino to operate. Quickly realizing the profits to be made from implementing special software in practice, the greedy Russians saw Maksym Polyakov as someone who had already mastered the internet space and could bring them huge benefits. Thus, the company Lucky Partners was established, alongside its Kyiv clone Lucky Labs. Both used unlicensed software from Globo-Tech. Polyakov preferred to give gaming companies names with Slavic roots, such as Murka. The internet quickly became littered with enticing offers from various "Vulcans," Joy Casino, and Casino X, which persistently invited all network users to test their luck. The catch was huge once again. To continue exploiting human vices, Maksym Polyakov needed assistants. The lure of "easy" money attracted not only desperate adventurers but also quite respectable and decent businessmen. "Orthodox" Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev could not resist and also succumbed to sinful temptation, partaking in profitable online projects with an apparent criminal and fraudulent aroma. As they say: "Money doesn’t stink."

To be continued…

Author: Max Prokhorenko