Dadvan Yousuf, who came to Switzerland as a refugee at the age of three and became extremely rich in a fairytale-like rise with Bitcoins, is being watched. The Financial Market Authority takes a close look at his Dohrnii Foundation.
Dadvan Yousuf is faced with more and more critical questions
It has now been six months since an article appeared here about a young man who was still largely unknown to the general public at the time: Dadvan Yousuf, a twenty-year-old Iraqi Kurd who left Iraq with his family at the age of three fled northern Iraq to Switzerland. According to his statement, he bought his first ten Bitcoins for a total of 15 euros when he was eleven in 2011. In the meantime he has made a fortune with cryptocurrencies.
While still a commercial apprentice, he moved directly from a welfare flat in the Biel suburb of Ipsach, where the family lived with their eight children, to the five-star Hotel Dolder in Zurich. He was called “the crypto-magician’s apprentice” here because you never know whether his story will fly in his face again.
Since then, the story of Dadvan Yousuf has been spread through various channels, doing everything possible to make it into as many media outlets as possible. He hired a PR consultant in Berlin, but he soon parted ways with him. The advisor was too reserved for him. His last big appearances to date were in the British tabloid “Sun” and in “Blick”, where he was recently celebrated as “Switzerland’s youngest self-made billionaire”, who wears watches worth half a million francs and more.
As expected, critical voices soon came to the fore. The uninhibited celebration of one’s new wealth is one thing, and as is well known, that doesn’t go down well in Switzerland. The other is the mostly anonymously expressed allegations that he is a swindler, impostor, even a fraud. So far there has been no solid evidence for such steep allegations, but various warning lights have started to shine.
830 dossiers for Finma
Probably startled by the high media presence, Finma has been combing through the Dohrnii Foundation for several months, the main project of the young entrepreneur Yousuf, with which, according to the project description, he wants to make as much crypto know-how as possible accessible to as many people as possible. Sort of like an educational project. The focus is on launching its own cryptocurrency, the Dohrnii token, and this is exactly what the Swiss financial market supervisors are now focusing on.
In the past six months, around 830 people have bought Dohrniis as part of the so-called ICO (initial coin offering), according to Yousuf, for the equivalent of around 6 million euros. Finma is now demanding precise proof of identity from the foundation for all investors, also to prevent criminal funds from being laundered in this way. Interested parties from Russia, China and the USA recently said the responsible employee in the foundation’s office on Zurich’s Selnaustrasse that he had to turn them down at the behest of Finma. Finma itself, as usual, is silent about its ongoing activities, but its spokesman Tobias Lux points out that neither the Dohrnii Foundation nor Dadvan Yousuf personally have supervisory approval.
The banking supervisory authority not only checks the dossiers of the Dohrnii buyers, according to one person involved, they also demanded insight into the further cash flows relating to the Dohrnii Foundation and its founder. It will also be examined more closely whether he has always clearly separated his private interests and those of the foundation. For example, whether it was correct that he sold Dohrnii tokens as a private person (according to his own statements to 15 people for a total of around CHF 1.3 million), which did not go to the foundation’s account, but to his private account.
From there, however, he transferred them to the foundation’s account, and Yousuf assures everything is legal. Whether Finma sees it that way remains open for the time being. Only when the tax authorities have given the green light can the Dohrnii token be freely traded, and Yousuf and his 830 investors are eagerly awaiting that. Because then the hoped-for large increase in value should begin. Only those who invest in this project need to know that the opposite is also possible: a total loss.
Dadvan Yousuf’s reaction to the growing criticism is rather contradictory. He once claimed that he didn’t give a damn what the Swiss media wrote about him, that he was looking for the international stage anyway. A minute later he threatens his lawyer if someone spreads nonsense about him. In one case, Yousuf at least threatened to file a criminal complaint: After a foundation board member left the Dohrnii Foundation in spring 2021 in a dispute, there was a lot of unrest and violent mutual allegations circulated. In the meantime, the board of trustees who has left has remained silent, but that hasn’t made things quiet. Suddenly, heads disappeared from the Dohrnii website, the white paper was adjusted, or Dadvan Yousuf’s old Linkedin profile was changed. This fueled the already existing distrust.
There were early doubts as to whether he was even a millionaire, as he likes to claim, let alone a “billionaire”, as he told “Blick”. However, the tax returns for the years 2017 to 2020, which he subsequently had his tax attorney submit to the Zurich law firm Wenger und Vieli in July 2021 and which the NZZ had access to, suggest a different conclusion. At the end of 2020, his taxable crypto assets were (converted) around 7.5 million francs.
“Conditional”
His fortune fluctuates from day to day like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but Dadvan Yousuf has since started to diversify, namely into real estate. So he bought into Crowdlitoken, a company that wants to revolutionize the real estate industry with cryptos and blockchain. On the official website, he appears as CEO, but with the note: “Subject to FMA approval”.
The Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority, which is meant by this, first of all wanted to know whether, as a 21-year-old, he was even able to run such a company, Yousuf says himself and is as confident as ever. What he never told (and the NZZ also concealed): that he did a commercial apprenticeship, but failed the final exam because of unsatisfactory grades.
That shouldn’t bother the young man and his surreal career too much anymore. He took off long ago. He now has his father chauffeur him to Kloten Airport in a recently purchased black Rolls-Royce. In the past few months he has been to Paris, Dubai, Moscow, Saint Tropez, Mykonos and the Dominican Republic, among other places; preferably in a private jet and together with his new companion, an ex-Miss Belarus, but not with a hoped-for Swiss passport. So far, he says, he only has his Iraqi passport.
Meanwhile, Dadvan Yousuf has already hired a ghostwriter to whom he dictated a book about his life so far. It should appear in the next few months. But where life will lead the crypto sorcerer’s apprentice is completely uncertain. Everything is possible.