…Pants on Fire!

Actually, I was going to write another story about some other scammers and tell how they are enjoying their lives now that they have stolen millions. And where they do this. That would certainly have interested some aggrieved parties.

But the whole story about Dadvan Yousuf, his strange Dohrnii foundation and its token leaves me little time at the moment. But at least, here comes an update.

Media fail

The story about Dadvan Yousuf, who I now call a fraud, is also a story of media failure.
Whether small provincial newspapers, Swiss state television or renowned international financial papers: they all fell for the windy guy.
And after Bitcoinpapers published some inconsistencies, some media also had the idea to investigate Dadvan.
It’s funny how the mood can change.

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung first wrote a long hymn of praise for the crypto fraudster. The scribbler did not notice that he was telling the journalist bullshit. Only when the criticism became public did the prodigy turn into a dirty child. (The journalist’s praise of Dadvan was so incredibly naive that I asked the journalist if he had been slipped a few dollars. He denied.)

But other media also have to put up with criticism. The Handelszeitung, for example, lay at Dadvan’s feet journalistically, only to kick him afterwards:

Swiss national television was really great. They celebrated the alleged millionaire in several reports. At least they corrected themselves afterwards and said that some things were probably a bit strange here:

But enough media bashing. Let’s take a look at what else happened with Dadvan and his foundation.

Family… family… family-business

Those who read the first report about Dadvan on bitcoinpapers.io may remember how Dadvan, his brothers and a certain Patrick Roth set up the foundation and just flipped 200,000 francs cash on the table with a lawyer.
Well, Patrick Roth is said to have fallen out with Dadvan and left. This means that the foundation is now practically a family business.

Yes. The family… This is something very special to Dadvan.

The “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” tells the heartbreaking story of the refugee child as follows:

“A year later, the whole family receives refugee status F and is accommodated by the Salvation Army in a block of apartments in Ipsach, a suburb of Biel. a suburb of Biel, Switzerland. Space is tight, money from social welfare is scarce, and the father struggles to get by with jobs as a as a dishwasher and pizza courier. Over the next few years, the family grows into a large family with eight children. Dadvan is Dadvan is the third and starts school at the age of six.”

And further:

“The family has to move from Ipsach to a moldy apartment in Biel for the next three years, where the electrical wires are hanging out of the wall and the tiles in the bathroom are falling out.
wires hang out of the wall and the tiles in the bathroom fall out.”

Now some few more lines from the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”:

“Half a year after his return from Kurdistan, he becomes a multiple millionaire for the first time in mid-December 2017.”

“Meanwhile, a few people suspect that Dadvan is not only living on his apprentice wages. In 2020, he outcashes for the first time since 2011. Sitting on a mountain of Bitcoins but still sleeping on a mattress on the parlor floor at home, he’ll fulfill a dream and spend one weekend at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz and another at the Four Seasons in Geneva.”

“In December 2020, the price of Bitcoin has been racing upwards for two months, Dadvan Yousuf decides to end his shadowy existence as a crypto millionaire. He feels that he is definitely protected against another crypto crash. So he moves from his parents’ social apartment directly into the “Dolder”, perhaps the most famous five-star hotel in Switzerland, which he already knew from an earlier visit.”

So let’s summarize: He was still living in a subsidized apartment, his parents were on welfare for the extended family, but Dadvan is sitting on his dough, preferring to let his parents starve instead of supporting them financially? Sure, that sounds very “plausible”.

But it gets even better.

Because not only Dadvan claims to have been active as a Crypto trader, but also his two brothers, who established the foundation with him. Which is weird, for Dadvan claimed in the German newspaper “Frankfurter Rundschau”:

“His brothers would have known that he ” trade” , but they would not have understood it.

Really? Who’s lying here?

This happy chap is Khalat I. Yousuf, born March 18, 1996, vice-president of the foundation. As Dadvan, he is a refugee from Iraq, living with his brother in a shabby apartment. But hey. He’s almost as good as Dadvan, according to his self-description:

Khalat I. Yousuf has extensive experience in finance and cryptocurrencies. He has been developing his own smart contracts and is currently working on a new consensus mechanism. As CMO, Khalat is responsible for overseeing the planning, development and execution of Dohrnii’s marketing and advertising initiatives.

And his career is truly amazing!

From 2013 until today, he worked as a “Junior Crypto Trader” at Mt.Gox. Well, Mt.Gox went belly up in 2014. But the Dadvan-brothers seem not to care and just continue trading. Well, Khalat only part-time. For beside this transcendental job, he works full time for Nuri (Bitwala) since 2016 and, also full time, as a “senior crypto trader” for Binance.

Two-and-a-half jobs for just one man. What a bloke!

And beside this, he claims to be a “Certified Blockchain & HR Professional“,  a “Blockchain Developer“,  a “Certified Ethereum Professional” as well as a “Certified Bitcoin Professional”. But like his little brother Dadvan, he never cared about family. His father was struggling to make money for the family as a pizza delivery driver, while Dadvan and Khalat were making millions. What a bunch of monsters.

 

But it gets even better. Meet Walat I. Yousuf, born March 26, 1998, a member of the Dohrnii-foundation and fellow member of the brotherhood of monsters. As his brothers, he is a refugee from Iraq and not able to travel around the world with his passport. However, judging by his LinkedIn-profile, he spent quite some time abroad.

From 2016 to 2017, he learned at the School of Management at Fudan University in Shanghai “Doing Business in China”. And while being there, without speaking one single word Chinese, he started  to work as “Foreign Exchange Trader” at “MetaTrader Marketplace” in Shanghai.

But of course this wasn’t his first professional experience. Since 2015, he works as “Junior Crypto Trader” at Kraken.

Once he knew how to do business in China, he went, according to his LinkedIn-profile, to the University of Cambridge, “one of the world’s foremost research universities.” After one year, so his claim, he got the “Cambridge International General Certificate of Education”, an international school-leaving qualification for admission to universities worldwide including the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and all Ivy League institutions.

But that wasn’t enough for a guy with ambitions. At the same time, he became a “forex trader” at GKFX, a Malta based securities brokerage company, a P2P-Investor in Mintos (an investment firm). And of course he worked in Cambridge for them. And still does work for them, if he can be trusted.

In 2017, he obviously moved to Tangjiawan and works since then as a “Senior Crypto Trader” for Coinbase. Returned to Cambridge, started to work as “stock investor” for Degiro…  well, he, as his two siblings, must have made millions.

Or is just flexing with some bullshit they invented.

Like Dadvan, the crypto-wunderkind. Who claimed that he was in a commercial apprenticeship at a company but faced too much of envy and therefore quit his apprenticeship. That he bought a real estate firm then where he wanted to finish his apprenticeship. That he “absolutely wants to get that degree.” (Neue Zurcher Zeitung). That he passed all tests for his degree “but then his degree was revoked, ‘because I wasn’t present enough. I thought I had to come to the exams first and foremost,’ says Yousuf.  This is certainly not particularly bad for him.” (Frankfurter Rundschau)

Once again: Bullshit. He didn’t pass the tests at all as this excerpt from his report card shows (1 is the worst grade possible):

So Dadvan and his brothers lie all their way. Is this something that would support confidence in the Dohrnii-foundation and its coin?

 

A Coin for the Whackos

Some whackos on the Dhornii-telegram-chat still think that Dadvan is their Guru and will show them how to get rich quick. He sure will: Showing them how HE gets rich quick. By taking their money. The foundation’s goal is to rise up to 50 million Dollars.

What would this money be used for?

“The DohrniI platform has a strong focus around education. We want to encourage people to learn and gain more knowledge about the crypto space, and investing in general. This is why we use the DHN token an empowerment token. We will rewards users in DHN as they successfully complete tests and challenges.”

For creating an app which could do this, any programmer wouldn’t charge more than some few thousand Dollars.

So what else does Dohrnii do?

In the Dohrnii-whitepaper, Dadvan and his cronies describe it as follows:

“ConsumeConsumers will use the platform in order to:

• Get due diligence support
• Track and gain market insights in real time
• Automated trades
• Downside protection
• Follow other investment strategies

Creators will be able to:

• Monetise their datasets
• Monetise on the investment strategies
• Retain ownership
• Privacy and security
• Digital rights management“

So what’s new here? Nothing. You find all of this (and more) in existing projects. eToro, Iconomi, a lot of Dex-projects. But hey, Dadvan and his partners in crime say that they want to eliminate poverty. That everyone should be able to become rich.

Sure. As if Dadvan’s uncle in Iraq could afford to buy some DHN-tokens, store them in an app and become wealthy.

And why is there a company on the British Virgin Islands, a known paradise for tax evasion, which is mentioned in the Token Purchase Agreement as the issuer of the Dohrnii-tokens? An agreement, btw, which has been eradicated by now from the Dohrnii homepage.

This may become crucial in the future, when Dadvan is on the run and investors want to get back their money.

And what about the case when Dadvan sold tokens privately to an investor as this document shows:

In Swiss media, he claimed that the money he took was forwarded to the Dohrnii Foundation. Now given the fact that a BVI company is issuing the tokens, this may be an action which is, at least, dubious.

Furthermore, it is stated in the Dohrnii whitepaper: “Tokens allocated to the team members are subject to a vesting period of 12 months.”

Vesting is the process of locking and releasing tokens after a given time. Vesting in the crypto world is often used to ensure long-term commitment to a project from team members.

By selling the tokens, Dadvan obviously violated the vesting period. Again: Every investor who believed what the whitepaper said must feel defrauded.

Then it may only be a crumble on the pie that another entity in Great Britain was established just days after Dadvan founded the Dohrni Foundation: The “Dohrnii Ltd.” (and I must confess: It is not clear yet if it really is connected to the foundation. But the coincidence with the date is odd.)

 

Where do the Coins come from?

But Dohrnii-enthusiasts don’t seem to be bothered by facts. They believe that Dadvan sold his toys and made a fortune in crypto.

Let’s look at his story again:

After he sold his toys, he took his father’s credit card and “went on a coin exchange, at that time Mt.Gox, and bought my first Bitcoins that way“, as he told in an interview with the Swiss newspaper “Handelszeitung”.

The only problem: Mt.Gox didn’t accept credit cards back then.

Oh, mistake. So he corrected his story and said:

“I started back in the days pretty easy with the credit card from my father via paypal and the exchange Virwox.” (Twitter)

Now that’s interesting. How many Bitcoin did he buy then?

10 Bitcoin for 15 Euro, according to Neue Zurcher Zeitung. Well… for doing so, he first would have to have had an account with Virwox.

As an 11 year old kid, this would not be possible. So in his father’s name, maybe? Possible.

The problem with this story? Let’s go back in time.

Dadvan claims, that he wanted to send money to his grandmother in Iraq. This wasn’t possible, so he started to search for a solution.

“Coincidentally, he comes across a Bitcoin forum. At first, he only understands that it can be used to send money quickly. And that he needs a credit card to do so.” That’s what he told the Swiss Newspaper “Blick”.

Now when was this? Sometime in Winter 2010/2011.

Which exchange was accepting credit card payments at this time?

None.

Mt.Gox didn’t accept Bitcoin.

Virwox? At the time little Dadvan found in the internet Virwox, they didn’t even sell Bitcoin. It was only April 27, 2011, that they started to sell Bitcoin.

And also not through credit cards. You had to use PayPal. And then buy Linden$. And buy Bitcoin with Linden$.

Furthermore, VirWox checked pretty thoroughly if someone was legit or not – otherwise, they would have faced problems with the Austrian Financial Market Supervision FMA. They wanted to avoid this (thanks for the reader who pointed this out. )

So: Dadvan never bought his coins when he was 11 years old. In one Swiss newspaper, they write: “He shows a transaction log from that time to buy 10 Bitcoins.” All fake.

Now if Dadvan hasn’t bought his coins back then, the whole story collapses.

He had no start capital to build his career on. Which leads us back to his advisor, Gehlert, and Gehler’s involvement in the PlusToken-scam.

Dadvan proudly declares that the Swiss market supervision body, Finma, is checking him.

It is time that not Finma, but the state attorney takes a closer look at him.

P.S.:

Even bankers from the renowned Credit Suisse fell for Dadvan. One banker just established a company in Switzerland for crypto trading. The stock capital was paid with – Dohrnii-token. Good luck, chap!