17.10.2024 Cybercrimes

How Shmyhal and KRAIL are feeding at the hands of Russian business. We call for sanctions!

Prime Minister Shmyhal closed the disciplinary proceedings against Yevhen Yakhnii, a member of the CRAIL . With this decision, he effectively gave the status of “legitimacy” to the corruption of Yakhnii, whose family received money from the Russian-controlled Diamond Pay payment system. Before losing its license, this system processed 70% of payments in the gambling sector.

Such actions of top officials are no longer surprising, but only confirm the idea that internal agreements and kickbacks can outweigh any fraud and schemes.

Receiving money from Russian entities during the war? It turns out that this is not a violation of the law and does not even entail disciplinary liability. KRAIL is one of the most corrupt bodies that, instead of regulating the market, conducting inspections and supervising compliance with the law, actually “covers” gambling.

Given the sad statistics that Ukrainians leave 400 million hryvnias in casinos every day, and 150 billion in a year, it is sad that taxes are paid on a maximum of a quarter of such “investments.” And while the budget is “losing weight,” someone from the CRAIL, the SBU, the BES, and the tax authorities is earning millions on gambling addiction. But the Ministry of Finance and the Cabinet of Ministers simply turn a blind eye to the billions that could help save thousands of military lives.

A few examples. PariMatch, Volcano, First Casino, GGBet and Favbet: what do these names have in common, except for gambling? All of them are owned by pro-Russian oligarchs like Matyukha and Krippa. Nevertheless, they easily obtain licenses in Ukraine, withdrawing billions to Russia through the Diamond Pay payment system.

Briefly about the main figures: Krippa

While people and businesses are on the brink of survival, Krippa is buying up Ukraine’s best assets for money from Lyovochkin (former head of the Presidential Administration) and Russia:

  • Parus business center,
  • President and Dnipro hotels.
  • Among the recent acquisitions is a UAH 2.5 billion investment by Krippa and his Ola Fine LLC in the well-known Ukraina Hotel in the center of Kyiv. Interestingly, other figures associated with Lovochkin participated in the auction: Valeriy Khoroshkovsky (Zhytomyr Furniture Plant) and Anatoliy Yurkevych (Alarit Prom LLC).

And all this for what? To open new casinos there and siphon off even more money from Ukrainians, which will later be transferred to offshore companies (of which Krippa has a lot: CITADEL VENTURES CYPRUS LIMITED, MAINCAST LIMITED, GSC GAME WORLD GLOBAL LTD and others) and to accounts in Russia.

Krippa and connections in Russia

Krippa’s ties to the odious Liovochkin are evidenced by a number of factors, including:

  • Krippa is a beneficial owner of companies linked to Lovochkin, such as Anrial (Folio-Lex) and Kinena (Euro Holding), together with Ivan Fursin (a friend and partner of Lovochkin’s who held his stake in Rosukrenergo).
  • Krippa previously controlled a 25% stake in the Dnipro Hotel through Smartland LLC, with financing provided by SICH Bank, which is linked to Denys Horbunenko, who previously worked with Liovochkin and Dmytro Firtash. 75% was then bought by Russians Babakov, Giner and Voevodin (their contribution was financed by RVS Bank, through which they seized the Lybid hotel).
  • Krippa also formally “bought” the Parus business center from Stolar, who “bought” it from Aliyev and the Firtashists. In fact, Stolar acted as a gasket for the flip to remove the encumbrances.

By the way, Lovochkin’s office is located in the same Parus. The director of Parus has not changed since Firtash and Liovochkin were listed as the official owners there.

Such deals raise the question of how independent the business of Brovary businessman Krippa is. Or is the man just a “front man” for Lovochkin and his Russian business partners?

What else can tycoon Krippa boast of?

In addition to these assets, the businessman also owns

  • the estate of Prominvestbank in Kozyn for 311 million (Midal LLC)
  • Prominvestbank’s office on Sofiyivska Street for 50 million (Midal LLC)
  • a boat parking lot and a base on Telychka for $1 million (formerly ROP, now SLV-P LLC)
  • several media outlets – Glavkom, Delo (claimed by Liga and UP)
  • the grocery market in Brovary,
  • Vulcan casino (KONKUEROR LLC), GGBet (GGBet LLC), and the NAVI (Natus Vincere) esports team.

Interestingly, despite the Russian origin of the online casino Vulcan and the bookmaker GGBet, the CRBU renewed Vulcan’s license to operate in Ukraine in January 2023, and in August 2023 issued a license to GGBet, which was later sanctioned by the President.

Based on our complaints, the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv issued a ruling in case No. 759/20457/24, ordering the Sviatoshynskyi District Prosecutor’s Office to register information about Krippa’s Russian connections in the URPTI. Let’s continue.

Matyukha

Matyukha has an extensive network of gambling establishments. One of the most famous is the Favbet network, which includes such legal entities as Favorite Bet, Favorite Jackpot, Sport Planet, Favbet Bookmaker Company, Favorite Leisure, Favorite Finance, Billionaire Casino Company, Favorite Casino Company, Favorite Game Slots, Favorite Investment, Lucky Land, and Neuron Gold.

Some casinos even went offline, opening real establishments in different districts of Kyiv, such as at :

  • 42 A Oleksy Tykhoho St., in the premises of MERCURE Kyiv Congress Hotel,
  • 6 Sicheslavskoho St. in the IBIS Kyiv Hotel,
  • Tysa Hotel at 4 B Velyka Okruzhna St.
  • Siesta Hotel on Sofiyivska Borshchahivka.

Matyukha also established control over Favorit United N.V., registered on the Caribbean island of Curacao. The company operates under a sublicense issued by one of the four licensees of Curacao and signed by Matyukha on behalf of Favorit United N.V. The managing director of the latter is a Ukrainian citizen, and his business partner is Igor Sosoniuk.

Matyukha himself has been repeatedly linked to tax evasion, terrorist financing, and continued cooperation with Russia, even after the full-scale invasion.

Although Favbet officially announced in early March that it was no longer working with Russia and had left the Belarusian market, in fact, they are ready to help Russian citizens connect to the services of the Ukrainian bookmaker in every way possible. We described this in detail in our investigation.

But for some reason, the state authorities, the CIA, and the security forces, especially the SBU, still do not notice the numerous manipulations and direct cooperation with the enemy. Or do they simply not want to notice?

Based on our materials, the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office registered a criminal case under No. 42024110000000326, Part 1 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code, and the Kyiv Regional Bureau of Investigation is investigating the case No. 72022100500000001 under Part 1 of Article 203-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. But what’s the point? If the institutions continue to operate at full capacity?

We are witnessing how our officials are actively “helping” the Russians to profit from Ukrainians. They may not have defeated us on the battlefield, but it seems they have simply bought the top of the government.

We call on the National Security and Defense Council to impose sanctions on Krippa, Matyukha, and the related entities listed in the text!

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Let us know about it. We will help protect the violated rights!

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