Suspicion of tax evasion and possible business in the Russian Federation - what is known about the owner of online casino 777

The popular online casino Slotoking operates under a common license with the online casino 777. Who owns both gambling businesses in Ukraine.

Who owns online casinos in our country, their background, income and connections. This time it’s the turn of the online casino “777”, which began operating in Ukraine in 2021. And the owner of the “three sevens” owns more than one such gambling establishment on the World Wide Web.

Slotoking and 777: two casinos - one owner

Visitors to the 777 casino have a generally standard selection of slots, games, bets on various gambling games, etc., which does not really distinguish the establishment itself from a long line of similar ones operating in Ukraine. But as the advertising of the gambling establishment says, the advantages are supposedly easy registration, quick payouts of winnings, 7% cashback and a Ukrainian license from the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (CRAIL).

And casino 777 is truly unique in some ways for Ukraine, because the company for which a license was issued on August 31, 2021, Slots U.A. LLC, has two online casinos. Comments have already written about the second one, operating under the Slotoking brand.

The close relationship between gambling establishments is also evidenced by the fact that advertising for the “777” casino in the Meta.ua search engine leads to one of the many “mirrors” of the Slotoking casino. As a result, it is not easy to understand where “777” actually begins and where Slotoking begins. But apparently, the owner does not strive for this, although the more famous and “promoted” brand of the two in Ukraine is still Slotoking.

Since two online casinos operate under Slots U.A., the income of each of them is virtually impossible to determine. It is only known that at the end of 2022, the company reported income of UAH 32.4 million.

However, there are already enough questions for the owner of the 777 casino. For example, her “brotherly” casino Slotoking could work in Russia, in any case, its advertising in the Russian-speaking segment appeared in 2012. On the Ukrainian-language version of the site, the first year of operation is listed as 2014, as, by the way, is the 777 casino, despite the fact that gambling was prohibited in Ukraine at that time.

The owner was almost convicted of tax fraud

The sole owner of Slots U.A. LLC is a certain Pavel Zhurilo, about whom there is very little information. But he already has a very negative background behind him in his previous company - Option Time LLC.

Judging by the first and last name of the owner of 25% of this company, Sergei Zhurilo, Pavel became the director of the company, co-founded by his father.

According to data from the YouControl analytical service, Pavel Zhurilo, when he was the director of Option Time, was almost brought to administrative responsibility. It turned out that Option Time submitted documents to the tax service for a VAT refund in February 2019 in the amount of UAH 1 million 659 thousand. However, tax officials found out that the data was inflated and the director of the company, that is, Pavel Zhurilo, should have been fined for this.

But the Dneprovsky District Court of Kyiv released him from administrative liability, since the violation became known in May 2019, and it reached the court in September, thereby expiring 3 months during which the person can be held accountable. Simply put, Pavel Zhurilo was lucky.

But already in 2022, Slots U.A. LLC became one of the defendants in criminal proceedings No. 72022000400000003 dated September 19, 2022, which involved dozens of banks and Ukrainian casinos.

According to investigators, Ukrainian online casinos have created a lot of illegal websites, so-called “mirrors” of their online casinos, but without licenses, and earning illegal money from this.

Then, in collusion with the banks, transactions with this money were carried out using miscoding and transferred abroad. People's Deputy of Ukraine Andrey Zhmerenetsky wrote that in this scheme, banks, online casinos, gas stations and supermarkets established the “exchange” of non-cash funds for cash and their withdrawal abroad.

Banks process non-cash payments from online casino players as money transfers to “random” individuals, but in reality to workers of gas stations and supermarkets in the form of their “black” wages to a bank card. Instead of these payments, gas stations and supermarkets give banks “black cash” for which goods are purchased. This product is exported abroad and sold, and the money received is given to the owners of online casinos.

True, the investigation into the alleged fraud stopped because the Shevchenkovsky District Court of the capital refused to disclose bank secrecy in the interests of the investigation.

Casino “777” and what does the ex-people’s deputy selling marijuana in Europe have to do with it

As “Comments” wrote, speaking about the work of the Slotoking online casino, Pavel Zhurilo had no experience in organizing gambling, the main activity of his sole proprietorship was work in the IT field, and the question of the origin of 31 million UAH for starting a business at Slots U LLC hey" also remains open. This is supported by the fact that Pavel Zhurilo opened his sole proprietorship in July 2020, and Slots U.A. in September of the same year.

As Comments found out, most likely Pavel Zhurilo acted as a figurehead for the real owner of the company, who could be ex-People's Deputy of Ukraine Andrey Zhurzhiy.

The politician’s trail can be traced through another co-owner of Option Time LLC, where Pavel Zhurilo was previously the director. We are talking about Liliya Vakulchak, who, in addition to 25% of Option Time, owned JSC Infox Closed Non-Diversified Corporate Investment Fund. However, in fact, the latter was part of the “Investment Partners” group of the former People’s Deputy of Ukraine from the “Self-Help” party Andrey Zhurzhiy.

The politician refused his parliamentary mandate back in 2018, preferring to go into business. If in Ukraine Andrey Zhurzhiy’s interests are financial services and real estate, then abroad he may be involved in the cultivation and production of medical cannabis, for example, through the company Cannexpor Pharma in Portugal. In any case, the business development director of this company, Anna Glushchenko, in one interview called the ex-people’s deputy a partner in this business.

In addition, in Andrey Zhurzhiy’s electronic income statement for 2019, when leaving BP, he indicated Cannexpor Pharma as one of the companies he owned.

In a word, finding 31 million UAH of investment for Slots U.A. LLC would clearly not have been difficult for Andrey Zhurzhiy, especially since in that same declaration he indicated UAH 111 million in income from the sale of Investment Partners securities.