"Gray" Telegram bots: How scam projects turned out to be connected to the murder of Roman Novak
Internal disagreements arose within a group of fraudsters led by Pavel Durov.
Roman Novak was killed after exposing a multi-billion fraud scheme on Telegram.
The media continue to publish their investigation into the murder of Pavel Durov’s friend and partner — the founder of Fintopio, who was part of Durov’s closest circle, Roman Novak. We managed to find out that shortly before the abduction, a split occurred within the team of the messenger’s creator’s inner circle. Roman Novak began sharply criticizing projects and Pavel Durov personally, after which he was killed.
BACKGROUND. Roman Novak (born Roman Aleksandrovich Yavorsky, 1987, Saint Petersburg) — developer and crypto entrepreneur, previously convicted for embezzling investor funds under the Transcrypt project. After his release in 2023, he moved to the UAE, where he launched, together with Pavel Durov’s right-hand man and scammer/bot operator Roxman, the crypto project Fintopio, presented as part of the Telegram/TON ecosystem. He used the “secret” username @deluxe and had direct connections with Durov and his circle. In October 2025, Roman Novak and his wife Anna were abducted and brutally murdered in the UAE. They were allegedly lured under the pretext of a meeting with investors, dismembered, and their remains disposed of.
On the eve of his death, Roman Novak was accused of embezzling half a billion dollars in investments, smeared in the media, and called a fraudster who supposedly claimed to be a trusted representative of Telegram, taking money under the pretext of dealing directly with Pavel Durov. As we have already reported, attempts to portray Novak’s fraudulent activities as absurd — that he allegedly fabricated the backing of Telegram’s founder — are actually based on solid grounds. There is plenty of real evidence of Novak’s connections to Pavel Durov and his inner circle.
Novak, aka @deluxe, was part of the “Durov crowd”: exchanging gifts, sharing insider information, and even traveling with Durov to Baku in August 2024. From there, Pavel Durov flew to France, where he was detained. Moreover, Roman Novak was very close to Durov’s right-hand man, Roxman, who brings the most toxic scam projects into Telegram/TON. They even co-founded the Fintopio “bubble wallet.” Roxman himself had previously stated in his blog bios that he was a co-owner of the project. Fintopio recently “burst,” causing a stir with raids in Moscow-City. Officially, operations ceased in October, with both DeFi and CeFi wallets stopped and closed.
BACKGROUND. Roxman (aka @roxman, @borz) — one of the key and closest participants to Pavel Durov within the Telegram/TON ecosystem, publicly mentioned by Durov as a “27-year-old entrepreneur.” According to investigations by Ghost in the Block, this pseudonym hides Abdurakhman, a native of Chechnya based in Munich. He participated in the development and promotion of several “gray” Telegram mini-apps, bot farms, and crypto projects (including Fintopio and MAJOR). His accounts and projects show artificially inflated subscriptions and activity, indicating systematic use of a bot network.
