The Gritsak brothers from the police and the Party of Regions may be behind the slot machine hall in Rivne. Where could they get the money for a multi-million dollar gambling license?
The gambling industry remains one of the few industries in Ukraine that can bring in not just money, but huge amounts of money. Only the official reporting of the TOP 10 market players for 2023 exceeded UAH 50 billion, and the payment of taxes to the state budget in the spring of 2024 amounted to an average of UAH 1 billion per month. It is not surprising that the market is growing with new players, including in the provinces.
Thus, the license for the right to engage in gambling in the 4-star hotel “Ukraine” in Rivne was received by Miura LLC, which has quite interesting owners and history. Why did this happen and who is behind the new market participant?
Slot machine hall and bookmakers at the site of the bankrupts
The establishment for the operation of gambling in the Rivne hotel “Ukraine” opened one of the first in the country - back in April 2021, local media reported that it had received a license.
Indeed, according to the Gambling and Lotteries Regulatory Commission, the Dnieper company Solo Games received a license to open a slot machine hall in a room with an area of 410 square meters. However, in 2023, the company began to have problems and in August of the same year the license was canceled, and on June 27, 2024 the company was declared bankrupt under a new name - Xanthi LLC.
But the premises should not be empty, the company Miura LLC, which actually owns the Ukraine Hotel, decided, and already on June 6 they tried to get a license in their name, although unsuccessfully. But on the second attempt, on July 18, permission was issued.
And what immediately catches your eye is the discrepancy between the official financial capabilities of Miura LLC and the legal requirements for paying licenses for gambling.
Thus, according to the YouControl analytical service, Miura LLC earned 10 million 848 thousand hryvnia in 2023. At the same time, the price of a license for a slot machine hall received by the company is UAH 12 million annually.
But the Miura license also allows them to engage in bookmaking activities at bookmaker points, and this, note, is 36 million UAH per year for bookmaking activities and plus 180 thousand hryvnia per year for each bookmaker point. The premises in the Ukraina Hotel, for which the company received a license, have an area of 442 square meters, which allows you to have a slot machine hall (by law, at least 300 sq. m. is required) and two betting shops (at least 50 sq. m. .)
Thus, the maximum payment for both licenses can be 48 million 360 thousand UAH annually, which is more than four times the income of the above-mentioned company.
The Gritsak brothers come from the police and the Party of Regions - who owns Miura LLC
Officially, the main owner (87.9%) of Miura LLC is a certain Lyudmila Kravchenko, a resident of Kyiv, also registered as a private entrepreneur in the capital, with the main activity being the hotel business. The remaining 12.1% belongs to Rivne LLC “Skarb”, the main owner of which is the same Lyudmila Kravchenko, but the second beneficiary of the company with 20% is Larisa Petrovna Gritsak, and the remaining 15% is owned by Igor Davidchuk.
Larisa Petrovna Gritsak is the wife of former police lieutenant general Vitaly Gritsak, who since 1994 managed to serve in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, tax police and administration, Organized Crime Control Department, State Security, and headed the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Khmelnitsky region.
However, Vitaly Gritsak is not the only police lieutenant general in his family - his brother Vasily also rose to this rank at one time and even twice served as a people's deputy of Ukraine from the Party of Regions in 2006 and 2007-2012.
It is curious that, according to the same YouControl, the main owner of Miura, Lyudmila Kravchenko, was an assistant to the People's Deputy of Ukraine Vasily Gritsak in 2007-2012. Moreover, one of the four receiving a salary, which indicates her closeness to the ex-politician and ex-police general.
Finally, the owner of 15% of Skarb LLC, and through him a stake in Miura, Igor Davidchuk, according to some sources, may be a close business partner of the Gritsakov brothers. In particular, his construction company “Kapitalinvest” was one of the reconstructors of the church in the village of Goryngrad Second, where the brothers were born. He is also a partner of Larisa Gritsak in another of her companies – the Treatment and Diagnostic Clinic “Liver Center”, where they each own 15%.
But what’s even more curious is that one of the founders of Miura LLC was once Anatoly Ivanovich Bolishchuk, who was also Vasily Gritsak’s assistant during both of his terms as a people’s deputy, albeit on a voluntary basis.
Thus, almost all the owners of Miura LLC are relatives or have known brothers Vasily and Vitaly Gritsakov very closely and for a long time, which suggests that this company is a “family company” for both.
Let us note that neither Vitaly nor Vasily Gritsaki are officially engaged in business, although Vitaly’s wife, Larisa, as mentioned above, owns shares in two companies - Skarb and LLC Diagnostic and Treatment Clinic “Liver Center”. But the declared income from them is not enough to pay for the KRAIL license - Scarb’s profit in 2023 amounted to UAH 3.2 million, the second company did not report at all.
In addition to Skarb LLC, Miura LLC and the Treatment and Diagnostic Clinic Liver Center, Lyudmila Kravchenko owns a number of companies that may well be part of the family business of the Gritsakov brothers - Megaforce LLC, Mekhavtotrans LLC, and 20% of Autocentre "Express service". But there is no data on the activities and income of these companies, except that Megaforce announced income of UAH 1.9 million in 2019.
EDAPS and foreign business Gritsakov
So, where can the Gritsakov brothers get tens of millions of hryvnias to pay for licenses, if officially they are not even engaged in business?
According to the electronic declaration, when leaving the state-owned enterprise Security Systems in 2021, Vitaly Gritsak declared 10% of shares in the Slovak companies Sun investment capital sro (another 10% belongs to his wife Larisa) and Alpina grate Europe sro True, what both companies do and whether the youngest of the Gritsaks and his wife still have shares in them is not known for sure. But it is very likely that this Slovak company is engaged in the production and sale of epoxy fiberglass gratings.
The declaration also gives an understanding of the financial assets of Vitaly Gritsak: his total income with his wife and son Yuri was about 780 thousand hryvnia, and his monetary assets were $34,500, 15,750 euros and 160 thousand hryvnia. However, the ex-police general still has money; only the Audi Q7 he bought in 2018 cost him UAH 2.2 million. or approximately 81.5 thousand dollars at the then exchange rate. And the residential building in Rivne with almost 290 square meters, purchased in 2018, also cost a pretty penny; it is owned by his wife Larisa Gritsak.
But in any case, Vitaly Gritsak’s official funds are not enough to pay for the license for Miura LLC.
There is even less clarity with the eldest of the Gritsakov brothers, Vasily, whose condition after leaving police service is completely a mystery. At the same time, in 2013, his name often sounded next to the scandalous EDAPS (Unified State Automated Passport System), which was engaged in the production of state-owned enterprises on an almost monopoly basis.
In 2013, Ukrayinska Pravda wrote that it was Vasily Gritsak, at that time the first deputy chairman of the State Migration Service of Ukraine, who oversaw the production of documents and did everything to ensure that EDAPS received government orders for the production of documents.
However, as “Our Money” claimed, Vasily Gritsak began lobbying for the interests of EDAPS and its main owner, Ukrainian Yuri Sidorenko, who lived in Switzerland, in the status of a people’s deputy at least in 2012.
Be that as it may, after 2014, the consortium actually stopped receiving orders from the state, but unexpectedly returned to the market as the Industrial Innovation Group, this time at the instigation of Prime Minister Denis Shmygal. As Ukrayinska Pravda wrote, the Industrial Innovation Group, through its subsidiary Polly-Service LLC, gained access to government orders worth billions of hryvnia.
It is not known whether this “comeback” took place with the participation of Vasily Gritsak, as an experienced person in these matters, but, according to the media, during the time of the first EDAPS monopoly, the ex-people’s deputy could earn quite a lot. And it is possible that these funds will be used to pay for the gaming license for Miura LLC.
It is curious that, as Commentaries wrote, Sergei Stefurak, an adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal, can now lobby for the interests of EDAPS. It is possible that it was the scandal and the struggle for the redistribution of financial flows that prompted the Gritsakov to invest in gambling and a license for Miura LLC; fortunately, gambling in Ukraine today is super profitable.
