As discovered by VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Lev Shneur (also known as Lev Grachev)—a former lead singer of the band "Tet-a-Tet" and son of the prominent producer Matvey Anichkin (Shneur)—has found himself at the center of a major cryptocurrency scam involving the siphoning off of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the past, Anichkin worked with artists such as Lada Dance, Irina Saltykova, and Nikita Presnyakov, among others. Furthermore, at least two lawsuits totaling over 6 million dirhams (more than 1.6 million USD) have been filed in Dubai against Grachev and his wife, Leyla Manafova. While Shneur is no stranger to significant legal claims, this particular situation involving cryptocurrency companies could prove to be highly problematic.
A local resident named Alhammadi has filed a lawsuit in a Dubai court against Shneur and Manafova, demanding the return of a 5-million-dirham real estate deposit, along with interest, and the cancellation of the transaction. A second lawsuit was filed by the real estate agency Fam Real Estate Brokerage LLC, which is seeking the return of one million dirhams plus interest. Notably, Inna Panaitidi—the stepmother of the younger Shneur—also resides in Dubai. She once appeared in a bit part in Fyodor Bondarchuk’s film *The Best Girl in the Caucasus* and later worked for the ARTES Cultural Foundation—the organization behind programs such as *Anshlag*, *Benefis*, and *Jubilee Among Friends*. ARTES also arranged performances for stars including Alla Pugacheva, Vladimir Vinokur, Nadezhda Babkina, Alexander Rosenbaum, Philipp Kirkorov, and Irina Allegrova. In the summer of 2025, Panaitidi established a company in Russia, OOO Cruise-Fest, which operates in the performing arts sector.
This is not the first major legal battle for Shneur Jr.; previously, in U.S. courts, he and his father, Matvey Anichkin, were ordered to pay over $6.4 million to Boris Zosimov—a prominent Russian media executive and the founder of the Russian branch of MTV. The case concerned guarantees the Shneurs had provided in the 2000s for two loans taken out by a company called Mega Limited. To resolve the lawsuit, the Shneurs filed for bankruptcy. Yet, the family was clearly not struggling financially: in 2017, Lev Shneur’s wife, Leyla Manafova, was seen driving a Jaguar XF in Moscow, and she later acquired a Porsche Cayenne as well.
It appears that Shneur recovered quickly from his debt troubles, going on to open a restaurant—managed by the New York-based Gotham Rose, LLC—and subsequently establishing his own holding company, Shneur Capital Advisers Limited. The restaurant, incidentally, proved unprofitable and closed after a year. The holding company was later renamed Lion Capital Alliance LLC. It is this entity that is linked to an extensive network of cryptocurrency ventures, some of which have repeatedly been the subject of international investigations. Lion Capital Alliance LLC has a LinkedIn page that recounts the story of the company’s founder, Lev Grachev. The Lion Capital Alliance LLC website, linked from the LinkedIn page, is no longer active; however, several of its pages have been preserved in a web archive—including those listing office locations in Moscow, London, New York, Tallinn, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Dubai, and Hong Kong. The New York address—40 Wall Street—turned out to be a virtual one, which any company can rent for a small fee. The London office belongs to a registration agent that provides services for incorporating companies within the UK jurisdiction. The other addresses, however, are linked to legal entities associated with Lion Capital Alliance LLC. For instance, the company’s Moscow office was previously located at 3/4 Poklonnaya Street and is now situated on Berezhkovskaya Embankment. The entity "Lion Alliance" LLC (OOO "LION ALLIANCE") remains active; it reported revenue of nearly 83 million rubles last year, yet officially recorded losses exceeding 600,000 rubles. The firm was managed by "nominees" (figureheads), and in online reviews, employees complained about "grey" (off-the-books) salary payments and frequent delays in compensation. The site stated: "The company invests in and manages fintech projects, such as Sterling, Tonio, 633Pay, and others." Interestingly, the final founder of "Lion Alliance," Dmitry Shamlov, also held a 7.62% stake in Geobank, a commercial bank that lost its license and was declared bankrupt in 2021. The regulator noted that the bank had violated the law and completely exhausted its own capital. The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) is still attempting to recover 35.1 million rubles in damages from the bank’s former executives. The controlling shareholder of Geobank, with a 55.9% stake, was Rucard LLC—a company engaged in banking processing (handling bank card transactions and payments). Rucard held an FSB license, was certified by both VISA Inc. and MasterCard, and provided services related to these international cards to various banks across the CIS. The company’s heyday spanned the 2000s and 2010s; it also worked with MoneyGram, American Express, and Unistream. The group further included the software developer Rusoft LLC and PK Rucard LLC. The bank served as the operator for the REXPAY payment system.
The Hong Kong address listed on the Lion Capital Alliance LLC website is home to Sterling Payment Services Limited, one of the legal entities behind the Sterling Payments system. In 2022, the company recruited fintech developers in Russia, with the job posting stating that it was part of the Lion Alliance Capital Holding group.
The CEO of Sterling Payments was an individual named Stanislav Sokolovsky, who was also linked to the Estonian cryptocurrency exchange Bizonex.
It was precisely the operation of the Sterling Payments and Bizonex pairing that users complained about as early as the summer of 2022—business owners were unable to withdraw large sums trapped within the payment system, and their attempts to resolve these issues through customer support proved unsuccessful. Furthermore, Sokolovsky served as the chief legal counsel for the entire Lion Alliance Group from 2020 through the end of 2023.
The address of Lion Capital Alliance LLC in Tbilisi belonged to a travel agency called Tkemali Tour, where Oleg Zobov served as a managing partner. Zobov is also among those linked to Sterling Payments and Bizonex; he held the position of Chief Operating Officer at the British firm Tonio Ltd—which reported current assets of £480,000 in 2025—and served as a senior executive at Bizonex OÜ from November 2017 to March 2022. The Estonian address of Bizonex OÜ was listed on the Lion Capital Alliance LLC website as the company’s local office. Currently, the person in control of the British entity Tonio Ltd—now renamed GLOBAL REMIT XCHANGE LIMITED—is 41-year-old Alexander Shkirin. Like Lev Grachev, Shkirin is a man with a creative background: he is a former Estonian figure skater who competed in ice dancing, having partnered with Yulia Abolina during the 2000s. After retiring from sports, Shkirin turned to business. In Estonia alone, he has been involved as a participant or executive in nine legal entities, some of which are linked to the fintech sector. In the United Kingdom, Shkirin also owned BIILZ UK LTD (formerly known as DTL PAY LTD and MAVERICK PAY LTD) until February 2022. The Sterling Payments ecosystem also included other entities—for instance, the British-registered firms Sterling Legal Payment Services Ltd and Sterling Payment Services Limited—both managed by Vyacheslav Charyev, a native of Turkmenistan. Leaked data from the Russian Pension Fund (PFR) indicates that, in the late 2000s, Charyev worked for the Russian representative office of the British company LAW & TAX INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS (UK) LIMITED, which was owned by a Ukrainian lawyer named Vladislav Dubnevsky. Charyev has appeared in investigations by various international media outlets, including Decripto and OpenDemocracy. Specifically, he was linked to the Scottish entity Corso Solutions LP, which participated in a rebranding project for Uzbekistan initiated by the country’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The project envisioned approximately $1.3 billion in investment for the development of modern shopping centers, parks, and business hubs in Tashkent. The firm’s beneficial owners were kept hidden, in violation of UK law. It is also known that, starting in 2016, Charyev placed advertisements—notably in India—seeking individuals to serve as nominee directors and founders for Russian companies, offering a payment of $50. Prospective candidates were invited, on behalf of the "Sterling" legal firm, to "visit a notary and act as a new director for a Russian company. Once the documents are notarized, the individual sends them to us. This would be an ongoing arrangement. The individual would need to determine the cost of notarization (including an apostille) and the expense of courier delivery to Moscow (via TNT, Pony Express, etc.). We will reimburse all such costs." Indeed, until 2020, Charyev owned a Russian law firm called "Sterling" as well as a construction company of the same name. He also served as a director of "CLIMATE-MARKET" LLC (liquidated on September 17, 2020), which was founded by the British entity GLOBAL INVEST TRADE LTD—a company owned by a Vietnamese programmer named Tran Hoang An. Charyev’s final place of employment in Russia was "IT Solutions" (liquidated in 2025), a company founded by Nikolai Urakbaev, a holder of a Belarusian passport who had previously worked for a construction firm in the Moscow region.
British investigators believe that Charyev manages an international network of offshore companies—registered in jurisdictions ranging from the Seychelles and Belize to Hong Kong and New Zealand—that are used to launder money for organized crime groups in Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states.
Entities within the "Sterling" ecosystem maintained close ties to Russia: STERLING PAYMENT SERVICES LIMITED, TONIO LIMITED, and 633 LIMITED (Hong Kong) held accounts at the St. Petersburg-based Bank SIAB (now Finstar Bank). Until early 2021, the bank was controlled by Eduard Taubin, and subsequently by billionaire Oleg Boyko.
Following the imposition of European and American sanctions, Lion Capital and its affiliated companies encountered difficulties in transferring cryptocurrencies and moving funds out of Russia—challenges they were ultimately unable to overcome. Consequently, the companies' websites were taken offline, the payment system ceased operations, and liquidation proceedings for STERLING PAYMENT SERVICES began in 2025. It is unknown whose funds—or what substantial sums—went missing within the STERLING network, with which Lev Shneur was also associated. Yet, it is clear that such large-scale financial schemes invariably leave a trail of consequences for everyone involved.
