By: Staff Writer
February 22, 2022
A controversial Russian diplomat is at the centre of a new venture in Grenada that seeks to build a cryptocurrency and Blockchain platform and more.
HE Oleg Firer, Grenada’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Grenada to the Russian Federation, is behind the Synergy High-Tech Park in Grenada. The project has several aims, but primarily is supposed to be a data centre for hosting and also a cryptocurrency and Blockchain platform.
Mr Firer, a technology entrepreneur himself and is the executive chairman of Net Element, a company that operates a “payments-as-a-service transactional and value-added services platform for small and medium enterprises (“SMEs”) in the U.S. and selected emerging markets,” says the NASDAQ where it is listed, is the chairman of the board of this initiative and sits with three other Russian nationals.
The 60 acres Synergy complex is to be developed in four stages, accommodated to development business in the field of technology, whose main aim is to increase the wealth of its community by promoting the culture of innovation, integration, and competitiveness of its associated knowledge-based entities, the company website says.
Everything would be good to go if Mr Firer wasn’t already a controversial figure in the Western Hemisphere. Some of his exploits involves a shady real estate scheme where the couple allegedly behind it went missing in Miami, Florida after property had changed hands with Mr Firer.
Another, more Caribbean matter happened when it was found that Mr Firer was behind plot to hi-jack the Grenadian nutmeg industry by cornering the market and leaving local farmers out of the value chain.
Mr Firer was already reported to be the main backer of the Eastern Caribbean blockchain and digital currency platform, however that seems to have fizzled out for now. So now he is into this new venture with Synergy High-Tech Park at a time when tensions between the US and Russia have never been higher due to the crisis in Ukraine.
American analysts are already preparing for cyber disruptions coming from Eastern Europe as a Russian response to US intervention in the Ukraine. Telecommunications manipulation and social media subterfuge has already been rumoured to have been emanating from Russia into the US, with some of these attacks and manipulation being responsible for shaping the previous two US Presidential elections.