Investigative journalist Evgeniy Plinskiy has made some important revelations about the Ukrainian gambling industry. Despite – and perhaps because of – the war and increased scrutiny, the local gambling market is flourishing. It is tightly controlled by Russian companies. This paradox raises questions about the transparency of KRAIL, the Ukrainian gambling and online casino market regulator. Who brought the Russians from Pin-UP to Ukraine, and who is Dmitry Punin’s (the Russian owner of PinUP – ed.) main partner in Ukraine? We publish Plinskiy’s piece with minimal edits.
For Ukrainian law enforcement officers investigating the case of the Russian Pin-UP operating in Ukraine, criminal case 62024000000000286, part 4 of article 110-2, part 2 of article 209, part 2 of article 255, and part 1 of article 365-3, I want to remind you of some important episodes regarding the appearance of Russians in the Ukrainian gambling market.
Some key figures, whose efforts led to the legalization of Pin-UP in Ukraine and who are partners of the Russians and overseers of their “interests,” remain in the shadows. This is not right.
So, I will repeat part of my post on this topic from October 2023, which, through the prism of the DBR investigation, takes on new significance and should certainly find its place in the criminal case.
The main partner of the Russians in Pin-UP in Ukraine, and the person through whose efforts this business was established here, can be considered fintech investor and banker Igor Fisun.
Let’s follow the chronology and see that this is indeed the case.
- On March 1, 2021, a certain Yaroslav Fomytsky registers a company called LLC “UGK Group.”
- On March 3, 2021, LLC “UGK Group” becomes the owner of another company, LLC “Ukr Game Technology.”
- On April 9, 2021 (a month after its creation), KRAIL issues a license to LLC “Ukr Game Technology,” under which the online casino Pin-UP begins to operate.
Pretty fast, right? Too fast. So, the owner of the online casino Pin-UP is an unknown guy named Yaroslav Fomytsky? De jure – yes. De facto – not at all.
Igor Fisun and Igor Zotko: Pin-UP Ukraine internal mechanics
The fact is that the day after the registration of LLC “Ukr Game Technology,” on March 4, 2021, Yaroslav Fomytsky resigns as director of LLC “Financial Company Finexpress.” The owner of this company is fintech investor and banker Igor Fisun.
In addition to FC “Finexpress,” Fisun is the owner of the payment system Interkassa, which services various online casinos, and immediately after Pin-UP entered Ukraine, they started cooperating with Interkassa, channeling all player money flows through them.
Market participants claim that it was on the Interkassa topic that the interests of Pin-UP investor Russian Dmitry Punin and Igor Fisun converged.
It is said that he guaranteed the safe entry into Ukraine for the Russians and resolved licensing issues. Naturally, the money flow of Pin-UP had to go through Interkassa. It seems that this is exactly what happened.
Fisun’s frontman, Yaroslav Fomytsky, opened a company, KRAIL issued a license under his name and guarantees, and the casino money flowed through his payment system Interkassa.
Nothing changed even after the war began until April 2023, when another IT businessman, Igor Zotko, became the new owner of Pin-UP. This is an even more mysterious figure but also seems like a frontman for Igor Fisun. (We won’t mention his monopoly in “DIA” here.)
The fact is, from 2016 to 2020, Zotko was the director of the company… Interkassa owned by Igor Fisun. Moreover, from 2019 to 2020, he was the director of the company “Ukrcard,” also owned by Igor Fisun.
In addition, it turned out that before buying Pin-UP, Zotko worked as the operational director at Pin-UP and had known the wife of the Russian owner of this casino, Marina Ilyina, since 2016, and advised them on payment acceptance issues.
He mentioned this himself in an interview with NV.
And this person, who is closely connected to investor Igor Fisun and initially integrated into cooperation with the Russians at Pin-UP, buys this casino from Fisun’s other frontman, Yaroslav Fomytsky, claiming there is no Russian trace or beneficiaries.
KRAIL turned a blind eye to all this, ignoring SBU reports on Russian control over Pin-UP and journalistic investigations. Now they will have to explain their “blindness” to the investigators.
Pin-UP and VBet accounts seized by State Financial Monitoring Service and State Bureau of Investigations
The first suspicious operations of VBet and Pin-UP were noticed by the State Financial Monitoring Service, which in April 2024 blocked the funds of the online casinos for 30 days, amounting to 2.86 billion hryvnias. Of this amount, 570 million belonged to VBet, and 2.29 billion to Pin-UP. The blocking was carried out based on part 3 of article 23 of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime, Financing of Terrorism.”
For a long time, the prosecutor’s office inexplicably delayed the proper preparation of court documents to ensure a long-term, rather than temporary, arrest of the funds. This caused entirely reasonable suspicions that the casinos were trying to negotiate with the prosecutors and aimed to withdraw their funds immediately after the Financial Monitoring Service’s blocking period ended.
However, the pre-emptive strategy failed, as the State Bureau of Investigations became interested in the cases of VBet and Pin-UP. Within the framework of the criminal proceedings by the SBI, the Pechersk District Court on May 13th imposed an arrest on the accounts of Pin-Up (LLC “Ukr Game Technology”) and Vbet (LLC “Vbet Ukraine”). The court indicated that these companies are suspected of being involved in laundering criminal proceeds through drop schemes and cryptocurrency operations, as well as cooperating with the Russian Federation in violation of sanctions.
The funds of VBet and Pin-UP were seized as part of criminal case 62024000000000286 concerning crimes stipulated by part 4 of article 110-2, part 2 of article 209, part 2 of article 255, and part 1 of article 365-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
