Roman Ziemian stripped of Cyprus passport over fraud
Roman Kazimierz Ziemian has been stripped of his Cyprus passport.
An October 24th report from In Cyprus claims the passport revocation is tied to Ziemian’s FutureNet Ponzi scamming.
Cyprus has revoked Roman Kazimierz Ziemian’s citizenship one month after his arrest in Montenegro over allegations that he defrauded users of approximately $21 million through the FutureNet digital currency trading platform.
If you’re wondering how Ziemian (right), a Polish national, secured a Cyprus passport;
Ziemian, along with his wife and son, obtained Cypriot citizenship through the “golden passports” programme by a Cabinet decision on August 28, 2019.
The family later changed their surname from Ziemian to Hortman.
Cyprus’ golden passports scheme saw anyone willing to pump 2.5 to 25 million euros into the country awarded a passport. The since-axed scheme is widely associated with fraud.
Warsaw Interpol has given Cypriot authorities permission to use the warrant information in citizenship revocation proceedings.
In addition to Cyprus, Ziemian and his FutureNet partner-in-crime Stephan Morgenstern also purchased Gambian diplomatic passports in 2019.
Roman Ziemian was arrested for a second time in Montenegro back in August. It is understood both Poland and South Korea have requested extradition.
Ziemian is facing criminal charges related to FutureNet in both countries.
Stephan Morgenstern was also arrested for a second time in Albania in September 2023. As of March 2024, Morgenstern was set to be extradited to South Korea.
There have been no further public updates since then.
In related news, public relations scammers continue to try to bury reporting on Ziemian’s and Morgenstern’s criminal activity.
The latest incidents are two attempts to bribe Molly White (right), an independent journalist who runs Web3 Is Going Just Great.
On October 18, a person who did not identify themselves but claimed to run a “reputation management company” that cleans up “clients image over the internet,” asked White to remove her X post about FutureNet and Ziemian, “which is about my client.”
The person then offered White a bribe of $200 to remove the corresponding post from Web3 Is Going Just Great, according to a copy of the exchange that White shared with TechCrunch.
White declined the offer, arguing that there were no errors in her posts. The unnamed person agreed, according to the response seen by TechCrunch, but nevertheless upped the price to $500.
A few days later, someone identifying himself as a lawyer named Michael Woods emailed White. Citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which governs U.S. copyright law, Woods alleged that White’s post infringed copyright because, they claimed, “this page content has been copied from our website,” according to the email exchange that White also shared with TechCrunch.
The site in question was a backdated article, copying White’s original work, published an AI-generated spam website.
White told the purported lawyer that, “there are penalties for filing false DMCA claims.” Woods responded by offering White $100 to “permanently remove” the same blog post about Ziemian.
White’s experience mirrors that of my own. Following repeated attempts to suppress BehindMLM’s reporting, we added Ziemian to BehindMLM’s DMCA Wall of Shame in August 2024.
A Google search of Roman Ziemian and Stephan Morgenstern reveals PR waffle spam is still being published on various websites as of November 2024.