05.03.2025 Cybercrimes

Another failure of the Bureau of Economic Security funded by Stolar and Degryk-Shevtsova

PariMatch, a partner of the Presidential Initiatives, is actively working in Russia. Thus, since 2021, Parimatch has been actively working in the Ukrainian market, having received official licenses for betting and online casino organization.

During its work in Ukraine, the bookmaker managed to: sign a memorandum with United24, a fundraising platform for the reconstruction of Ukraine founded by President Zelensky; enter into partnerships with football clubs Juventus, Leicester, Everton, as well as world-famous athletes such as Conor McGregor, Mike Tyson, and Oleksandr Usyk.

In addition, Parimatch signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. So, in fact, the Ministry of Education and Science supports and advertises gambling among children and teenagers? But that’s not even the worst part.

Despite the NSDC sanctions, the Supreme Court’s decision and the ban on the bookmaker’s activities, Parimatch continues to operate in the Ukrainian market, but under different names: “Parik24, Pari, and others. Moreover, they do not even try to hide the obvious connection between the companies: they use identical corporate colors, style (graphics, logo, advertising slogans are almost identical), advertising messages, and wordplay.

Parimatch actively implements similar manipulations in Russia. Local journalists have repeatedly published investigations comparing the similarity of activities of bookmakers with different names and pointing out the identity of their websites.

Parimatch’s financial flows continue to go through a number of Ukrainian banks and payment systems, without any reaction from the NBU, the Ministry of Finance, or law enforcement agencies. Previously, the main link for legalization of gambling proceeds was the now-licensed Ibox Bank, owned by Shevtsova-Degrik and oligarch Kolomoisky.

The aforementioned Degrik was responsible for coordinating the withdrawal of funds, using the Aybox network of terminals to process payments from casinos and bookmakers.

The cases of Parimatch and Degryk have been under consideration for a long time by law enforcement officers of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the BES, and the courts. It is noteworthy that the judges of the Lychakiv District Court of Lviv, with the assistance of the BES in Lviv region, tried to cancel the international wanted list and the suspicions of Degryk-Shevtsova. While the former was realized, the issue of Shevtsova’s suspicion still remains open.

The BES and Degryk-Shevtsova strongly oppose the process of overseeing the legality and objectivity of judges’ decisions. For example, after sending complaints warning about the planned manipulation of Lviv judges and the cancellation of suspicion, media attacks on the NGO Non-Stop and its head Yakovets began in telegram channels with millions of users.

In addition, we received a strange letter from the head of the Detectives Unit of the Main Detectives Unit of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine, Yashchuk O.V., where he reported that the agency had received a letter in which we allegedly warned about the new procedure for sending documentation and correspondence – only with a copy of the passport or power of attorney for the NGO’s representation. In addition, the forgery contained a reference to the work of the NGO “Non-Stop” exclusively in the Kharkiv region, so the materials covering other jurisdictions were asked to be left without consideration.

This letter is a clear confirmation of the BES management’s desire to conceal all the crimes that the Bureau is actively lobbying for. With the financial support of Stolar, Degryk-Shevtsova and other businessmen, they will continue to hush up crimes and pretend to work effectively by cheaply forging letters from NGOs and thinking that this will help protect their billion-dollar earning schemes.

Gambling, smuggling, production of counterfeit goods, manipulation of VAT underreporting and hundreds of other money schemes are still lobbied by BES representatives. Moreover, the acting director, Perkhun, does not take any action to stop his subordinates from taking advantage of the schemes. On the contrary, he actively protects and participates in making money from the schemes.

The competition for the position of BES director is currently underway, and the aforementioned Perhun is, of course, fighting for the job. So much so that he even sends us messages with death threats for continuing our human rights activities. We hope that the commission will pay attention to his “achievements” and investigate the work of the Bureau during the time Perkhun was in charge. Spoiler alert: they are unlikely to find anything positive, except for Perhun’s personal enrichment.

And although our materials revealed that the day before the TU BES in Lviv region initiated criminal proceedings No. 72023000500000071, and the central BES – No. 72022000400000003 under Part 3 of Article 212, Part 2 of Article 203-2, Part 2 of Article 229, Part 1 and Part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, with this approach to investigations, we can hardly expect objectivity.

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