Such wild conspiracies are simply unnecessary. They have considerable monetary operations. They work with banks. They have to have a registered company, or no bank will work with them. Registering a shell company in Cyprus is easy, especially for a Russian businessman. There is simply no point in lying about it. There are other means to preserve their anonymity while conforming to acceptable business practices.


Oh, they are Russians. (Could be Ukrainians, although much less likely.) Definitely native Russian speakers. They just aren't Russian citizens, or at least have stated that they aren't. The statement from them that I remember was "although we currently reside in Russia, we aren't Russian citizens" or something like that. My guess is that they have obtained a citizenship from another country and have renounced their Russian citizenship.

There is a reason why the prosecutor's office in Volgograd (Russia) was investigating this particular exchange and not one of the Chinese ones, don't you think so? Determining who they are and where their company is registered wouldn't be a problem for the Russian law enforcement. But the reaction of the admins wasn't "you can't find us"; it was "we aren't in your jurisdiction - servers are in Bulgaria, company is registered in Cyprus, we aren't Russian citizens".