Will the license of the Cosmolot casino be taken away due to the withdrawal of money to Russia and the leaking of data to Russian intelligence?

It seems that the most famous “Ukrainian” casino “Cosmolot” is facing dark days - at the highest level there is talk that it will soon lose its license.

At least, this is what People's Deputy Nikolai Tishchenko promised in his Telegram. This happened on February 2, and the next day the BEB announced that it had exposed the casino operator Cosmolot of withdrawing 1.2 billion hryvnia to foreign accounts and evading taxes of 30.2 million. For this, the owner of the license under which the casino operates, Spacex LLC, had 700 million hryvnia blocked in his accounts.

Were these two events connected - Tishchenko’s statement and the blocking of accounts within the framework of criminal proceedings No. 72023000500000026, opened under Part 2 of Art. 203-2 (Illegal activities of organizing or conducting gambling, lotteries) and Part 3 of Art. 212 (Evasion of taxes and fees) of the Criminal Code is most likely a rhetorical question. However, what is interesting about this process is that the criminal case against the operator of Cosmolot, SpaceX LLC, was initiated back in May 2023 and lay motionless somewhere in the bowels of the BEB. And only after Tishchenko’s public statement she was abruptly given the move.

Tishchenko also named the reason why “the Cosmolot casino is everything.” According to Nikolai Tishchenko, “Cosmolot belonged to Russian citizen Tokarev and the “volunteer” Mazepa, who liked to illegally hunt wild boars from a helicopter in Croatia during the war. Let us remind you that Mazepa was recently arrested at the border when he was traveling to Poland on Maybas for “humanitarian aid.”

Or whether it was the ownership of the casino by the Russians and the withdrawal of money to Russia that was the reason for such activation of the Bureau of Economic Security - the question is open, since the fact that Russian business in modern Ukraine feels quite free is known to everyone. However, as a reason for the “attack”, the Russian one should be fully relied upon. Moreover, this information is true.

Let us remind you that Spacex LLC received a license from CRAIL to organize gambling under the Cosmolot brand. It, according to the registers, belongs to Ukrainian citizen Sergei Vladimirovich Potapov and British citizen Arnulf Ekkehard Neumann-Damerau.

One billion two hundred million hryvnia, according to the BEB, were withdrawn from the British KYCAID LIMITED (authorized capital of $90) and Splash Technology Ltd (ceased its activities on February 18, 2014). The money was allegedly transferred for a subscription to the software. So far, nothing is known about the progress of the investigation in this direction, but the fact that the money went to a company liquidated back in 2014 speaks for itself. Why the owners of Kosmolot did such a stupid thing is difficult to explain, because buying a company with a clean reputation in Britain is not at all a problem. Therefore, all statements by Kosmolot representatives about “false accusations” are not even worth commenting on.

But regarding the Russian trace, this is more interesting. Because even at the moment when Spacex LLC received a license, experts drew attention to the rather dubious reputation of this office. Firstly, the identity of its then leader and beneficiary Potapov raised many questions - a number of companies with a very wide range of activities were registered under him - from trading in markets to construction.

It was Spacex LLC, a few weeks before going into the gambling business, that had a completely different specialization - wholesale trade in clothing, then changed it to activities in the field of law, and only after that, along with the emergence of a new beneficiary - Arnulf Ekkehard Neumann - Damerau - announced his intention to engage in gambling.

However, along with these interesting factors, much more interesting was what Tishchenko confirmed - traces from Spacex LLC led to Russia. The person who promoted Spacex LLC into the Ukrainian gambling market is called Mikhail Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation.

Tishchenko is silent about him, but he is the person thanks to whom the citizen of the Russian Federation Sergei Tokarev was not only excluded from the sanctions lists, where he was sent for the previous president, but also appointed to the commission that held a competition to select digital products to combat Covid.

Tokarev contributed a million hryvnia to the prize fund of this competition. Whether there were any other “contributions” and who exactly received them is anyone’s guess. However, be that as it may, Tokarev was actively involved in all digital products, as developed by the Ukrainian authorities. For example, "Diya.Sity".

In Russia, Tokarev is associated with the activities of online casinos, united under the name “Vulcan”. And they are owned by the famous lover of the “Russian world” Konstantin Malofeev, in whose network “Rosseti” and at one time promoted “volcanoes”. However, when Tokarev was allowed to develop digital products in Ukraine, these connections were denied. Just like when Spacex LLC received its license from CRAIL.

However, now these connections are confirmed by Nikolai Tishchenko, who is far from an ordinary representative of the Servant of the People.

Another person involved in Tishchenko’s report is the owner of Concorde Capital, Igor Mazepa, who became famous for being detained last October by Croatian police while hunting wild boars from a helicopter. The Time even wrote about this, in an article with the rather eloquent headline “They steal from Zelensky’s Office like there’s no tomorrow.”

However, despite the rather unpleasant name for Ukraine, what is more interesting is that Igor Mazepa is also associated with Russia and the sponsorship of the sub-republics of Donbass. In the occupied territories, until 2018, the TYME payment system operated, owned by OMP-2013 Financial Company LLC, which was bought by the Russian Qiwi group in 2011. In 2013, the Russians sold their corporate rights in this company, and Alexander Chizhov and Igor Mazepa bought them. The latter owned the company until 2018, all this time it worked in the territory of ORDLO.

Mazepa is also associated with the Russian Alfa Group, owned by sanctioned Russian oligarchs German Khan, Mikhail Fridman and Alexey Kuzmichev - in 2013, Igor Mazepa became a member of the supervisory board of Alfa Bank, owned by these people.

Until 2017, Igor Mazepa was a co-owner of the company Private FX, associated with Dmitry Medvedev - Private FX's other co-owner was Alexey Kuzmichev, who was listed as an authorized person under Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when the latter was in office. The owners of Private FX are hidden behind Skopalino Finance Limited, which is called Concorde Investments Limited. The owner of Concorde Investments Limited is Igor Mazepa.

All this, of course, is denied by Kosmolot, claiming that they are a “100% Ukrainian company.” And emphasizing the fact that Cosmolot sponsors the Ukrainian army. The latter is true; during the war years, 130 million hryvnia were transferred to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We emphasize that this is according to representatives of Cosmolot; whether the figure corresponds to reality is unknown. But even so. You just need to compare this figure with others.

According to reports from Spacex LLC, Cosmolot earned a little more than three and a half billion hryvnia last year:

By the way, pay attention to 2020 - before the company was repurposed for the gambling business, it was completely unprofitable. But not about that yet. And the fact that even against the backdrop of officially declared income, the amount of announced assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not impressive.

However, apparently, the profit is underestimated, and by several times. Economist Yuri Gaidai claims that only 10-15% of casino income is taxed. If his calculations are correct, then Cosmolot earned not 3.5 billion last year, but at least ten times more - from 35 to 53 billion. Feel the difference. By the way, this figure is indirectly confirmed by BEB, accusing Kosmolot of tax evasion.

But there's one more thing about this. And it is much worse than money. Online casinos need the digital data of their players. This is a complete set: last names, first names, tax numbers, bank accounts. If we assume that Nikolai Tishchenko and the journalists who claim that Cosmolot belongs to the Russians are right (and there is no reason not to trust them), where does all this data go? The answer, unfortunately, is obvious. Just like the fact that a gambling addict is a fertile field for any manipulation. There is no need to explain how Russian intelligence uses this either. And the question is not “whether he uses it.” And the question is how exactly. And all this data is available to her through the player base of the Cosmolot casino, which, of all things, talks about its “help to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” This is not to mention how many of the 52 billion hryvnia siphoned out of the pockets of Ukrainians went to Russia.