Murder of Telegram founder’s ex-partner Novak: how the creator of the “God’s Eye” bot, Antipov, planted a false trail to cover up the clients from Durov’s circle

14 ноября 2025 г.

Nadezhda Sorokina

At one point, a man named Evgeniy got involved in Novak’s conflict. He personally called the parents of the injured teenager, introduced himself as a friend of Novak’s family, and promised to "come and sort things out." After the phone conversation, the boy’s parents saw the last name—Antipov—and matched the voice of the caller with the one from the interview with the creator of the "God’s Eye" bot. It was the same person.

As we previously reported, Evgeniy Antipov is not just an acquaintance, but a close friend of Roman Novak. They were family friends, and Novak gave Antipov the cool username @evgeniy

At one point, an article appeared in Mash claiming that Novak had single-handedly scammed investors out of $500 million, using Telegram and Durov’s name as cover. It’s worth noting that this was a paid sting. Even before Mash, the Cheka-OGPU had also offered to publish this material for money. We found the topic interesting, but it clearly needed more work and promotion. We offered to collaborate with an anonymous source on a large-scale investigation for free. However, he acted nervously, saying he needed the material published urgently (this was October 2nd, the day Novak disappeared), that it needed to be published as he’d sent it, and that he was willing to pay $5,000 for it. This was disconcerting, and we declined. On October 3rd, the material, purportedly from a "customer," was published on Mash.

After the article, Evgeny contacted the teenager’s parents and tearfully begged the victims to ask the prosecutor’s office to lift the travel restrictions on Roman. "Yes, he’s having serious problems with his creditors, he’s hiding, and they want to leave immediately." (Evgeny later repeatedly reported that Roman and Anna had gone on the run.) The parents refused. However, Novak then failed to appear for questioning at the prosecutor’s office, and the police were tasked with finding him. The police gradually determined that Novak wasn’t hiding, but dead.

As the picture of Roman Novak’s final days is now being pieced together, many agree that he "feared tourists from the Russian Federation more than the police." And this isn’t about the info-bomb about creditors thirsting for Novak’s blood and the Fintopio scam, which the media launched after Novak’s death.

He didn’t hide even after reports that the wallets of his project’s users had been frozen. On the day of the kidnapping, he was in the house where he had previously driven a vintage car (or replica). This is evidenced by a photo of an open chat on his phone—it contained correspondence from October 2, with the body of the vintage car in the background.Roman Novak wrote that he would redesign the project. To do this, he and his team went into "bunker mode" for nine months. He didn’t forget to blame Pavel Durov’s brainchild for everything. The collapse of Fintopio wasn’t the issue. He was afraid of something else.

Roman Novak was most concerned, to put it mildly, about the strained relations within Pavel Durov’s circle. He feared that his criticism of Ton and the founder of the Telegram messenger would lead to retaliation. We previously published his prophetic messages, in which, after a tirade against the technocrat and his digital creations, Novak himself cut himself off, writing that he had said too much.

And after Novak disappeared and the Fintopio collapse rumors spread, Antipov suddenly ceased to be Novak’s friend.

He began to say:

"Novak has cheated. There are many creditors. He owes me too." It was Antipov who first claimed that Novak was "on the run."