More than a Year has passed after the crash of one of the biggest
crypto scams in Europe.
About €100 million of investors capital was paid into the scheme before it disappeared.
What really happened? Where are the Bitcoins?
The Optioment case developed into an international criminal case with Austrian crypto-entrepreneur,
Christopher Rieder and his crypto company Cointed involved as suspects.
It appears that Cointed’s ATM and exchange services were used to transfer investors funds to Optioment and funneled back for Cointed’s expansion.
Rieder embarked on a long business trip when Optioment fell apart and has not been seen since.
Let's go back to where it all started .
On a crypto miner meeting in Prague
September 2016
I received the information that there is a Trading Robot
out there which could be used to Multiply bitcoins with an Arbitrage Trading Bot.
The offer of Optioment was a weekly Return of 2% on Bitcoins Invested.
...My first guess was SCAM....
My contact and his 2 Partners known in the community as the "3 Musketeers"
(I'm not sure who came up with that name, it sure wasn't the 3 themselves, probably it was the media...)
had been introduced to Lucas Mazur and Alex Popov, supposedly the founders of Optioment
by Christopher Rieder former CEO of Cointed.com which was at that time the largest and most successful Crypto Fiat
exchange in Austria and Germany.
Rieder told the "Musketeers" a few weeks back that he knows a Guy
with a Trading Robot and that they should take a look at it.
Rieder claimed he had done multiple large exchanges for Mazur and Popov
prior to informing the Musketeers about the Trading Bot.
This gave the whole Optioment scheme quite a bit of credibility
as Rieder was a highly respected person in the European Crypto community at this time.
Rieder established the contact and negotiated the conditions for the "Musketeers"
under which Optioment should be Marketed.
First requirement from Mazur to the "Musketeers" was to bring up 100k € worth Bitcoin
in order to prove their Marketing skills and obtain exclusive Promo Rights of the "Product"...
Oktober 2016
I placed my first investment of 1BTC (back then 617$)
a total of 100k were collected very shortly
Right after the goal was reached Rieder organized a personal meeting with Popov ,
Mazur and the 3 Musketeers in London to seal the deal.
A Marketing Plan was Created which has been renegotiated a few times
and Optioment began working on the backed of the user website.
Rieder was on top of the Marketing Pyramid and the 3 Musketeers were placed right below him.
While the website was being set up I started notifying my network which I had acquired
over the past years dealing with several different Multi Level Marketing Companies.
November 2016
the website was ready for investors to join in
due to the huge promises made by Optioment
the system grew very quick in December I made investment for my whole family.
April 2017
I already had 100d's
of people signed up for the 2% a week "deal".
The only thing the Investors had to do was make a Deposit of minimum 1 Bitcoin
(later 0.5 and 0.25 Bitcoin as the price of 1 Bitcoin kept rising)
provide Optioment with a payout address and collect their weekly share deposited right to their Bitcoin wallet.
Optioment had always claimed to have already made 10.000BTC before they opened the Bot for the Public
and the 10.000BTC were stored as backup capital in case
anything was to happen to the trading bot.
Optioment never missed a single payment in over a year and if they did they notified all users about it.
The network grew rapidly , the support and technical side was taken care of by Alex while
Lucas was portrayed as the business guy.
I'm not getting too deep into the Marketing plan , how ever it was very lucrative to spread the word for any Networker
and equally lucrative for the investor. Very simple product to sell.
With the Rise in Bitcoin price over the year 2017 everybody's share grew rapidly.
If one invested 1BTC at a price of $700 and received 2% a week you would have had 14$ a week.
By the time the system collapsed Bitcoin was 19000$ so ur weekly share wasn't 14$ but 380$.
May 2017
I stopped actively referring people as my network was growing by the day, with or without my input,
people contacted me daily to participate.
I had always advised to not invest anything you couldn't afford to lose, for me it was a high risk investment after all,
but not everybody had the same approach and for some the saying "greed eats brain" was absolutely suitable.
A lots of credits from banks were used to invest into Optioment,
some put in all their savings.
September 2017
Optioment came up with a even crazier offer 4% a week for an investment period of 2years.
investors would get 4% a week on their invested capital and the initial capital back after 2years.
the mass was going crazy and I had 3-10 sign ups daily , Investors were literally throwing bitcoins at
Optioment to participate.
Oktober 2017
my first year contact on the 2% plan was over . I received my 1BTC back which made me 2.41BTC over the course of a year.
I also Reinvested that 1 Bitcoin into the 4% plan and added some of the Bitcoin I had earned through my structure.
Later that month Optioment had to shut down
they claimed it was because of the amount of transactions they had to pay on a daily basis
and that they were working on a mass payment solution which wouldn't cost that much in transaction fees.
The system wouldn't pay out for 3 weeks . Also paying into the system was stopped.
Many of us suspected this might be the end but at the same time if it was a scam ,
why not accept more money if they want to run anyway as people were lined up in masses for the 4% "deal"?
November 2017
there was one last payout of more than 100BTC to the Network.
After that Optioment support Alex claimed while setting up the new mass payment software he had lost 1000ds
of Bitcoin and Optioment wasn't able to Pay out until they get the coins back that they invested which will be free in 5 months as he had just locked them into the trading bot.
At this point Alex basically admitted that Optioment was paying Old people with New peoples money
and that was the last time anyone had heard from Alex P.
The Community went crazy , attacking the "3 Musketeers" , even made death threats to the 3
and around
December 2017
the name "3 Musketeers" was born.
more than 100 people pressed charges against the 3 "Musketeers"
The "Musketeers" confronted Rieder who first denied any ties to Optioment, once the "Musketeers" published chats records which proved Rieders involvement he admitted that he had established the contact and was offered a commission for doing so but never received a comission.
...strange if you are the first person on top of ta system that pays automatically...
The 3 were ordered to speak in front of the Austrian Authorities as they were the main suspects in a fraud case.
All 3 cooperated with authorities and submitted email exchanges , chat records and phone numbers to the Authorities.
The "Musketeers" had met Alex Popov and Lucas Mazur 2 times , once in London once in Frankfurt, all other contacts were made via email or Skype on which Alex and Lucas always covered their camera as they claimed
"out of personal security reasons".
There are no Pictures that could Identify the 2 Suspects.
The "Musketeers" are also listed as Victims in the case and not as suspects.
Christopher Rieder was the only contact who could know the real identity of "Mazur and Popov" as he was running
a Crypto exchange and told the "Musketeers" he had exchanged for Mazur multiple times in large amounts
so he should have done a KYC right?
The Austrian Authorities never had a chance to Interview Rieder and he didn't seem to care to speak to them either he rather let his Lawyer speak that he has nothing to add.
Rieder never returned back to Austria from a business trip he went on shortly before Optioment collapsed .
At about the same time he resigned from Cointed and Wolfgang Thaler took over as the New CEO of Cointed.
mid 2017
Some of my friends who were costumers at Cointed (like 95% of all Optioment investors)
discovered a glitch in Cointed's system which allowed costumers to make orders that never expired
so if one ordered BTC at price of 8k but sent the bank transfer weeks later when the price was higher 12/13/14k
they would still receive the old price thus more Bitcoin which they sold immediately at a gain .
This worked from mid 2017 until Cointed stopped Paying their costumers in April 2018.
Did Rieder Know about that ?
Did he maybe do that on Purpose to milk the company through straw men?
Were Mazur and Popov real or did Rieder hire 2 actors for the meetings with the "Musketeers"?
Was Thaler and the whole Cointed Team involved ?
What do Charlie Aho and Daniil Orlov know?
Why did Rieder not talk to the Authorities if he had nothing to fear?
Where is Rieder?
And where are the bitcoins?
April 2018
Cointed was Raided and Thaler had Claimed he was left hanging by his former Cointed partners
and shortly after disappeared himself, one of my sources told me he had been Visited in Kufstein by some angry Cointed Users and lead the country right after.
Where is Thaler?Is he hiding with Rieder living the good life on 6000BTC they stole from their costumers?
Optioment collected approximately 10000BTC paid out about 4000 to its investors where are the 6000BTC?
There is much more to say in this case but at this point we can only speculate what happened ,
answers can only be given by Rieder who is not to be found at this time.
If you have some more information please feel free to add these in the comments,
the whole case can be followed on
https://fintelegram.news
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what's your price prediction on bitcoin?now that the downward trendline has been broken out,
between 2000 and 4000$ by the end of the year. I don't see an uptrend any time soon.
and if it goes up loads of people will dump for Christmas . I think it will be more or less the same as it is now for a while.
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