The detained Russian online gambling tycoon Dmitry Punin, who was later released under unknown terms, earned a huge amount of money in Ukraine and illegally transferred it to Cyprus in 2024. Despite facing criminal charges in Cyprus and having his accounts frozen in Ukraine, Punin managed to negotiate with corrupt Ukrainian authorities through his partner Igor Zotko and Minister Fedorov.
Just in the period of January-February 2024, nearly 200 million UAH were transferred from Pin-UP accounts in Ukraine to the accounts of Russians in the Cypriot company Guruflow Team Limited.
Do you remember last year when we highlighted the Cypriot company Guruflow Team Limited?
It is the main offshore entity of the Pin-UP empire, owned by three Russians – Dmitry Punin, Alexander Matyashov, Ivan Bannikov, and Punin’s Ukrainian wife, Marina Ilyina. Guruflow owns the rights to the Pin-UP trademark. The control of Pin-UP by Russians is grounds for license cancellation in Ukraine, but KRAIL gambling regulator and Ivan Rudy have stubbornly ignored the fact, even after the documents and proofs were published.
Looking at the “protection” of the Russian Pin-UP in the SBU and the NBU, KRAIL allowed them to operate and earn. Naturally, the Russian owners of Pin-UP generously “thanked” everyone for this. Then the “protection” of Pin-UP started to fail, the financial monitoring blocked their money, and the DBR (Ukrainian investigative centralised police force) began investigating the mysterious monopoly of the Russians, the role of KRAIL, and certain representatives of the NBU (the national bank)
The investigation has already found that the money collected in Ukraine by the so-called Ukrainian Pin-UP was systematically transferred to the Cypriot accounts of the Russians. With this money, Russian Dmitry Punin bought assets in Cyprus, purchased yachts, and paid for his luxurious lifestyle.
It was also established that the formal owner of Pin-UP in Ukraine, Igor Zotko (beneficiary of LLC “Ukr Game Technology”), is actually a representative and hired manager of the Russians in Ukraine, where he carries out their tasks, including transferring Pin-UP funds to the accounts of Russians.
The question of the operation of the company “Yedynyy Prostir,” which monopolistically processes all payments in the state app “Diia,” remains open. Its owner is the same manager of the Russians in Pin-UP, Igor Zotko.
Therefore, it is interesting to find out whether the Russians control this company as well, whether Zotko transfers money from “Diia” to offshore accounts on their command, and whether he passes personal data of Ukrainians from “Diia” to the Russians. And here, the question is addressed to the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation and Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who is well aware of these threats.
Last week, the Ministry of Digital Transformation warned the Financial Committee with its letter about the presence of Russian gambling business in Ukraine, which might be collecting data on our military use. So, on one hand, the Ministry of Digital Transformation acknowledges the threat posed by the Russian Pin-UP collecting military data, but at the same time, it does not see the problem in the monopolistic presence of the same people in “Diia” and the threat of data leakage from there.
