What Is Pay-to-Delete?

Pay-to-delete is a documented extortion business model in which operators publish damaging or defamatory material about individuals, then sell removal for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency — often under labels like "purge contracts" or "reputation insurance."

Unlike traditional one-to-one blackmail, pay-to-delete networks operate as publishing enterprises. According to IPS News ("The Lie Industry," June 2025), dozens of linked domains — including kompromat1.online, kartoteka.news, vlasti.io, and antimafia.se — share infrastructure, monetization, and editorial patterns. Victims discover articles through Google search, then receive pressure via email or Telegram to pay for deletion.

The four-phase playbook

1. Placement phase — A seed article is published, sometimes for as little as ~$150 according to investigative pricing documents cited by IPS News and Dutable.
2. Pressure phase — The subject is notified. Telegram channels with large followings (e.g., K1, ~155k subscribers per OSINT mapping) threaten wider republication.
3. Purge contract — Operators offer removal for $3,000–$12,000 USDT or BTC, framed as a "purge" or legal cleanup.
4. Re-post cycle — Investigative sources and Trustpilot victim reports document cases where content reappears on sister domains after payment.

Who runs these networks?

Public investigative reporting alleges that Konstantin Chernenko coordinates a kompromat pay-to-delete network, with associates including Serhii Khantil (infrastructure), Mykhailo Betza, and Lesia Zhuravska (crypto payments). These are allegations drawn from journalism and OSINT — not legal findings. See our evidence bibliography for primary sources.

Technical fingerprints documented across the network include WordPress clone sites, shared Google Analytics and AdSense IDs, Telegram republication within ~15 minutes of web publishing, and traffic-direction (TDS) cloaking that may show different content to search crawlers than to human visitors.

Post-2023 pivot to English

After Roskomnadzor blocks in 2023, multiple clusters pivoted to .se, .cloud, and English-language copy to reach international victims and search audiences, as reported by IPS News and Stop Kompromat (Medium).

What victims should know

Payment rarely provides durable relief. It may fund further publishing, create no enforceable contract, and in some jurisdictions may raise questions about financing criminal activity. Document everything, do not engage beyond preservation, and use our portfolio resources for next steps.

Documented sources and publisher visibility

Screenshots below show the investigative articles, complaint pages, and publisher domains cited throughout this reference. Each links to the live primary source.

IPS News: The Lie Industry

June 2025 investigation naming 60+ linked pay-to-delete domains and pricing.

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Dutable: Pay-to-Erase Machine

Technical breakdown of shared infrastructure across kompromat1.online and sister sites.

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Trustpilot: kartoteka.news

Victim-reported payment and republication complaints on the flagship domain.

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Stop Kompromat: domain mapping

OSINT write-up of mirror pivots to .se and .cloud TLDs after 2023 blocks.

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