EasyPay of the Avramenko brothers: payments for drug trafficking, gambling and the Russian trace of money

After GlobalMoney left the payment system market - the service’s license was taken away for participating in illegal traffic of money for gambling - another payment system operator, EasyPay, began to take its place.

Moreover, some government agencies and monopolists providing utility services accept payments through EasyPay. Thus, more than 20 million Ukrainians use EasyPay services. A holy place is never empty, that’s understandable.

But obvious questions arise. According to the Joker TG channel, payments for drugs, weapons and other illegal transactions are actively made through EasyPay. EasyPay also successfully occupied the gambling niche vacated by GlobalMoney.

The owners of EasyPay, Alexey and Anton Avramenko, of course, deny this information. And very actively, understanding who is behind the Joker TG channel and justifiably fearing for their money - if the people behind the channel promote the topic, then EasyPay will face the fate of GlobalMoney.

As always, when some accuse and others defend themselves, the question arises - who is right? In this case, the question is this: is the attack on EasyPay and Mr. Avramenko really not just an attack, but has a good reason? Moreover, the latter claim that they are clean before the law and “nothing like that.”

A study of open sources suggests that “Joker” still has good grounds for his accusations. Back in 2019, a petition was registered demanding that EasyPay be closed specifically for making payments for drug trafficking

The petition did not receive enough votes and therefore remained unanswered. But one of the cunning journalists went further and analyzed the Register of Court Decisions. And I found out that in cases of drug trafficking, it was the EasyPay system that most often appeared - out of 480 verdicts, 113 payments were made through EasyPay.

The same thing occurs most often in the news about the arrest of drug dealers:

If you simply type the name “EasyPay” into Google, the picture you get is also very eloquent:

So it is unlikely that the information from the TG channel “Joker” is a banal “assault,” as the Avramenko brothers, who own the payment operator EasyPay, claim.

Why then won’t EasyPay’s license be taken away, like GlobalMoney’s? "Joker" provides an answer to this question:

Sergey Savchuk is a separate story, but it was thanks to him that Financial Company Kontraktovy Dom LLC, which ensures the operation of EasyPay and whose owners are Anton and Alexey Avramenko, received a license to conduct financial transactions. In other conditions, this would have been impossible - Alexey Avramenko was the owner of the bankrupt Trust Bank, and for this he received a “black mark” from the NBU - what in the language of bankers is called “not without record business reputation.”

But thanks to Savchuk, they turned a blind eye to this. The Director of the NBU Payment Systems Department, Natalya Grigorievna Lapko, also helped, with whose son, Alexander, Alexey Avramenko had a joint business for a long time. It is not known exactly who else took an active part in the fate of EasyPay Alexey and Anton Avramenko, but it is clear that the matter was not limited to NBU employees Savchuk and Lapko.

Because, in addition to money for drug trafficking and illegal gambling, Alexey and Anton Avramenko were once charged with financing pro-Russian terrorists in Donbass. The story is connected with the AVK confectionery factory, which they own. Although "AVK" allegedly stopped working in the territories of ORDLO in 2015, in 2017 its products were suddenly discovered in the stores of the "DPR" and "LPR", and it itself was registered with the "tax authorities" of these quasi-republics as a large "taxpayer" " The matter was hushed up, and it is clear that they helped “resolve the issue” at the highest level.

There is also a frankly frightening side to EasyPay’s activities - for some time now it has been making payments to government agencies within the framework of the so-called “Power in Smartphones” program - EasyPay has launched a service for paying for public transport fares in several large cities, accepting utility payments and payments for the services of central centers and service centers centers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

One can only guess where all the data collected in this way from both users - and, let us remember, there are more than 20 million of them - and from recipients of payments, which are government bodies, is then merged. Especially taking into account the Russian footprint of the AVK corporation and Trust Bank.

A separate line raises the question of Russian money, which, according to the Joker TG channel, moves freely through the EasyPay system.

Another problem is servicing illegal casinos. And the question is not even that, but the fact that they are played en masse by Ukrainian soldiers, whose payments are readily processed by EasyPay. The problem became so widespread that the president was forced to intervene, but how effective was his decree banning the game for military personnel is a rather rhetorical question. The game continues, the money is coming. Along with the money - the personal data of the soldiers. And, as you know, recruiting a gambling addict is as easy as shelling pears.

In addition, you should pay attention to the following information. “The total amount of financial transactions for transferring money through EasyPay for 2022 amounted to more than UAH 28 billion, of which more than UAH 14 billion were financial transactions not exceeding the amount of UAH 4,999 (not requiring identification) and financial transactions worth more than UAH 7.5 billion , which do not exceed UAH 5,000, which indicates that more than 80% of cash accepted by FCs intended for transfers were received from unidentified persons and were probably carried out for the purpose of further legalization of funds of unknown origin. Available data indicate that a significant part of the cash received by the FC in this way is transferred to the shadow sector of the economy through its sale to business entities, and non-cash deposits from other legal entities are received into the accounts of the FC on the basis of imaginary transactions.”

Translated into simple language, this is called evasion of financial monitoring and taxation. And - violation of the requirements of legislation in the field of combating the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime. And - as a consequence - the creation of favorable conditions for the transfer of significant financial resources to the shadow sector of the economy.

In general, the work of EasyPay includes the whole range - from tax evasion to drugs and the Russian trace. But, oddly enough, government agencies and state-owned companies (the same NJSC Naftogaz) continue to use EasyPay services. Which raises a huge number of questions both for law enforcement officers and the country’s top leadership.