The group is sponsored by the Russian government. This is the same group (algorithm)
which was used to predict the Loma Prieta earthquake. Gorbachev told Reagan at
a summit in 1989 that their scientists had a prediction algorithm that was showing
a big earthquake in California in the next several years, so preparations should be made.
The U.S. research community has not been too keen on the algorithm because
the studies that have been done have not shown a high statistical significance, but
the Russian group has convinced a number of people that the method works, mostly
by emphasizing their successes and not mentioning the many failures.
In the same way that there is unacceptable individual/group terrorism which is considered
totally unacceptable; and state-sponsored terrorism, that is often considered legitimate,
there is individual/group earthquake predictions which are considered nonsense
by the establishment and there is state-sponsored earthquake prediction, which
even though it is often statistically less valid, is considered legitimate.