Penguins Leader Allegedly a Victim, Possibly a Perpetrator of Crime
Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins is rather good with pucks. He is one of the NHL’s premier offensive threats, the winner of three Stanley Cups (a big doodad with a bowl on top that Canadians award to the best professional puck-shooters in the northern part of the Western Hemisphere), one Conn Smythe Trophy (a leaf-shaped thing given by Canadians to people they enjoy watching on TV), two Art Ross Trophies (a yet another doohickey for nifty pucksters, this one looking a bit like a borscht pot), and even a Hart Trophy, which may or may not be a rare piece of expressionist art depicting a nuclear explosion.
Either way, Evgeni Malkin does not appear to be quite so good with bucks. Yes, he is paid handsomely by the Penguins for the right to practice his art in their color of clothing, but the Russian superstar does not seem to be doing much good with that money. And it’s not that he is shy about investing it, either. For instance, about a decade ago, Malkin had decided to become a restauranteur and open a joint in his native Magnitogorsk called VIP-Zone, which had a swanky and happening prison theme. Yes, prison. A Russian prison. A GULAG. The staff wore striped jumpsuits, there was barbed wire on the walls with bars on the windows. It was very classy. You had to be there. The enterprising Penguin owned this peculiar eatery for three years before leasing it to someone else.
However, this time, it appears that Malkin’s business activities may lead to a more than whimsical acquaintances with places of confinement, if not for Malkin himself then for his associates. According to the story on Sports.ru, Malkin may have lost about $4 million on what appears to be a fraudulent cryptocurrency scam ran by his Russian friends and associates.
The article is very long, chock full of details about Malkin’s friends and business associates, all of whom fit the standard profile of “shady Russian actor”, as well as their half-baked business ventures, so let’s distill it into the main points. About a year ago, Malkin had invested into a company called Mark.Space which was run by his old buddy from youth hockey days, the buddy’s relative, the buddy’s buddy and the buddy’s buddy’s wife. In other words, your standard Russian startup scheme. The company was supposed to create a revolution in the world of virtual reality technology. Or something… It must have sounded very exciting to Malkin who was so enthused, he immediately forked over $4 million of his own money.
At this point, it doesn’t appear that the hockey player took any active part in the running of the business, beyond providing it with a celebrity front, which in turn made it more attractive to other investors. Overall, it is suspected that the company was able to raise over $10 million in investments. Anyone with a passing familiarity of how such companies operate in Russia (stereotypically, at least) could offer a guess on what happened next. Namely, that the company directors immediately proceed buying Range Rovers and cases of Dom Perignon, emptying the latter and smashing the former until the money dries up. Or at least this is how the stereotype goes.
There is no proof that Mark.Space was this kind of Russian company, beyond the fact that they burned through their initial investments very quickly, following which the company turned a successful ICO, entering the cryptocurrency market. However, about a year later it abruptly stopped paying its software developers and its Japanese affiliate, closing both outfits. Those who are familiar with the token market could probably easily surmise what exactly torpedoed Mark.Space. The rest of us will have as much of an idea as Malkin likely had.
At this point, it is very likely that the net outcome of this story is that Malkin has lost $4 million cash by trusting the wrong people and foolishly investing into an unstable market he knew nothing about. What’s worse, he may wind up being in legal trouble with the US government, assuming he didn’t report that money to the IRS. Which he very, very likely didn’t. There is also reason to believe that Mark.Space broke US law by selling tokens to unaccredited investors. The company’s marketing director has claimed that a portion of the $10 million (about $1.5 million) was returned, in cryptocurrency, to American citizens, though it is not clear whether he means Malkin and his wife or someone else.
Interestingly enough, this story has triggered another, much more political story in the Russian media, as it has made clear that Malkin has at some point received US citizenship. This isn’t terribly unusual for Russian NHLers, except of course that Malkin in particular is known as a big Russian patriot and a huge supporter of Vladimir Putin.
Last year, Pittsburgh’s star joined “The Putin Team”, a political movement created by his colleague Alexander Ovechkin, the most vocal and devoted follower of Russia’s dictator in the world of hockey. Malkin wasn’t especially vociferous about his support of Putin until yet another colleague, Artemi Panarin, ripped Putin in an explosive interview last summer.
When asked about Panarin a few weeks ago by the Russian state channel Match TV, Malkin responded that he doesn’t agree with him and supports Putin. He called the Russian strongman a “cultured” man, “with a sense of humor”, who “behaves in a dignified manner as the face of Russia.”
After noting that Russia does indeed have many issues and opining that athletes should stay away from politics, Malkin proceeded… to say this:
“I think that Putin’s foreign policy is the correct one. Yes, we are arming ourselves, but this is the right thing to do. We must protect our house. We must defend ourselves, if there is some danger to us.
I never liked it when people said that we must be friends with the West, friends with America, friends with everyone. There are no friends! We are our only friends. Everything else is just politics!”
Needless to say, for a man to offer such fighting words in support of his leader’s expansionist, anti-Western, anti-democratic policies to get an American citizenship may just be viewed as a slight logical incongruity.
This angle alone has made Malkin a subject of somewhat of a media frenzy in Russia until the hockey player himself finally confirmed that he indeed has a dual citizenship. Of course, while confirming this to a Pittsburgh sports writer Shelly Anderson, he also offered a worldview quite different from his previous statements, saying “I don’t like the confrontation between Russia and America.” There appears to be a serious disconnect between the things Malkin says to American and Russian media.
Which of these problems (financial, legal or political) may give Malkin the biggest headaches is an open question. What isn’t in doubt is that the man’s on-ice decision making abilities are miles and miles ahead of what he can manage when not in skates.
