Telegram bots for collecting donations in Telegram and connecting paid accounts are associated with Kazan businessman Dmitry Eremeev, who is called the investor of Pavel Durov's cryptocurrency and the company of former Nashi commissioner Masha Drokova, Mediazona found out.
The @donate and @PremiumBot bots allow Russian users whose cards have been disabled by Visa and Mastercard payment systems to use paid telegram services. The telegaram team itself, after the @donate bot refused to connect monetization to several Russian journalists, officially designated its status for the first time. According to Telegram spokesperson Richard Berti, “Bots on the platform, such as @donate, are not related to Telegram. They have their own owners, teams and policies”
The administration of the @donate bot sets limits for the authors of telegram channels and claims that, due to the rules of payment providers, content for monetization should not contain “propaganda of certain political beliefs, as well as negative or critical statements on political topics.” One of these providers is Smart Glocal.
The same company processes payments for premium Telegram accounts and stores users' personal data. The service has two administrators — Hong Kong-based Smart Glocal Services Limited and Cyprus-based Tapicash Limited. As Mediazona found out, the structures of Dmitry Eremeev, a Russian businessman from Kazan, are closely connected with this company.
Eremeev, as he himself told The Bell, helped Pavel Durov with SEO for his VKontakte project. And later he created his own «Bank 131» — as Mediazona found out, it is through this bank that some payments are processed through telegram bots.
Yeremeev himself told Mediazone that he “cannot confirm that he is the owner, but with the @donate team he is actively helping them.” He also confirmed that the Jersey-based Tapiworld “is an affiliate of my ePN project” and that the @donate bot’s money is indeed being transferred through the Cypriot company Tapicash.
When asked about payment processing, the entrepreneur replied: “It is impossible to accept money from Russian bank cards without passing through Russia; at least, I am not aware of such an option.”
At the same time, he stressed, payments on foreign bank cards “of course, are never processed through Russia and do not affect Russian structures in any way.”
< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/e258d450e935bf36a40bcb34f9c06745.jpg" class="mz-publish-context-cite__image" alt="1" />Russian premium. Telegram bots, through which Russians make donations and buy paid accounts, are associated with Kazan businessman Dmitry Eremeev