At the end of April, detectives from the Bureau of Economic Security exposed an illegal casino and a fraudulent call center in one of the capital's business centers. What adds spice to the news is that the owner of the building turned out to be a famous businessman, shareholder of the CEO Club community Vyacheslav Lysenko.
He sees pressure on the business in the searches and claims that the gaming tables in his center are solely for entertainment with friends. Journalists analyzed Lysenko’s business history and found out that behind a good picture and eloquence lies an ordinary schemer.
BEB states that to identify the illegal gambling establishment, a number of searches were carried out, including in the places of residence of those involved in criminal proceedings. “Poker equipment, computer equipment, accounting documents, video cameras with recordings of casino visits, as well as envelopes with cash for issuing rewards to players were found and seized at the gambling establishment. At the same time, during a search of the home of one of the defendants, almost 135 thousand US dollars and about 5 thousand euros in cash were seized. The man has no official income and could not explain the origin of the money,” the law enforcement agency said in a statement.
We are talking about searches in Kyiv business centers at the addresses Degtyarevskaya, 33B and Butysheva Lane, 23. Central Real Estate LLC and Express House LLC, the founder of which is Vyacheslav Lysenko, are located here.
From the materials of the criminal case, it was possible to find out that at least during August 2023 to April 2024, the established gambling establishment provided access to gambling for cash rewards and food services, as a result of which the organizers received illegal profit in the form of a commission. To coordinate actions, closed chats in Telegram were used, and professional croupiers and administrators were invited for implementation.
The operation to identify a gambling establishment operating without a license took eight months.
The head of Central Real Estate LLC and Express House LLC, Mikhail Slipukha, received suspicion in this case. Vyacheslav Lysenko is a witness in it, since he is the owner of a business center and was in one of the offices during the searches. He himself confirmed that sometimes he and his friends gather in his office to play chess, backgammon or cards, but this is supposedly not gambling.
It took the CEO Club community almost two weeks to publish their statement regarding the searches. In it, they stated that they see pressure on business in the actions of law enforcement officers. Although BEB subsequently stated that the business community does not appear in the criminal case. But the leaders of business centers in which an illegal casino and a call center were found were found.
Vyacheslav Lysenko is quite famous in business circles. In particular, he positions himself as an intermediary in doing business between Ukraine and China, a coach and a public figure. Its main business is the Meest China postal system and the logistics company Ukr-China Logistics. True, he was the last founder only in 2008. Now the company is headed by a native of the Sumy region, Sergei Nikolaenko.
As for the business centers where the searches were carried out, this is in fact Lysenko’s only business in which he now remains the ultimate beneficiary. But his role is rather nominal, because the contribution of another founder to Central Real Estate LLC, the Cyprus offshore Ferlanko holding limited, amounts to almost 9 million hryvnia. While the contribution to the authorized capital of Lysenko himself is 0 hryvnia. The company has been generating negative profits for the past few years, although renting out premises should have brought in good profits, at least in pre-war times.
The director of the Ferlanko holding limited offshore company was previously Dmitry Zhukov, who until December 2022 was among the founders of Central Real Estate LLC.
The business center, located on Butysheva Lane, 23, is owned by Express House LLC. Together with Lysenko, the founder of the company is Innovative China group limited from Hong Kong. The distribution of the authorized capital here is also impressive: the Chinese contributed 24.5 million hryvnia, and Lysenko - 0 hryvnia. Although, for example, as of December 2022, Lysenko’s wife Victoria had exactly the same contribution as the Chinese.
Lysenko is also involved in the IT business, although it is not known how successfully. After all, his Skywell Metaservice LLC is located at 3 Surikov Street. On the one hand, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is located at the same address, and on the other, several other small buildings, including a dormitory.
The most interesting of all the companies to which Vyacheslav Lysenko belongs is Ukr-China Communications LLC. It is her activities that make it possible to shed light on the capital that Lysenko actually earned. Thanks to the court registry, it was possible to find out that the company was involved in an extremely unpleasant criminal story involving money laundering.
The investigation established that a certain group of people, using controlled companies, organized a scheme for the legalization of property obtained by criminal means. They have been conducting this activity since at least 2019. These persons also controlled a number of legal entities registered on the territory of the Russian Federation and in annexed Crimea.
As noted in the case materials, the main generator of funds in this case on the territory of occupied Crimea is PJSC Clinical Sanatorium Poltava-Crimea (JSC Clinical Sanatorium Poltava), serving military personnel of the Russian Federation, LPR and DPR. The director of the sanatorium is a citizen of Ukraine, who is also a deputy from the United Russia party. “In order to receive funds received from the economic activities of PJSC Clinical Sanatorium Poltava-Crimea and other enterprises registered in the Russian Federation, three people monthly applied to the “conversion center”, the structure of which includes Ukr-China Communications LLC ", located in the business center "Rent-House" at the address: Kiev, st. Goloseevskaya, 7 on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors,” investigators note.
In 2021, the court decided to provide access to documents on all financial transactions carried out with Ukr-China Communications LLC during the period from 2019 to July 2021.
So, one of the companies on which Vyacheslav Lysenko built his Ukrainian-Chinese business turned out to be part of a conversion center.
Formally, Lysenko left the founders of Ukr-China Communications LLC in 2012 and now the company is registered to the Israeli Arkady Murachev and Ukr-China.com Limited from Hong Kong. But since the same man and the same Chinese company appear in Lysenko’s main company, Ukr-China Logistics, we can conclude that he continued to influence it. This means he was a beneficiary of the income of the conversion center.
Moreover, Vyacheslav Lysenko’s Wikipedia page reports that Meest China and Ukr-China Logistics were founded by him in 2017. While the registers indicate that he was its founder since 2008.
Another company associated with Vyacheslav Lysenko, Wheel of Life LLC, appears in the criminal case of money laundering. In 2007, its founder was the wife of a businessman, Victoria.
An interesting coincidence: it was in 2012, when Lysenko allegedly left the founders of Ukr-China Communications, that he purchased a house in the elite Koncha-Zaspa. According to an extract from the Register of Rights, he purchased an unfinished house from the famous developer Nver Mkhitaryan, manager of the Poznyakizhilstroy construction company, for 2 million 139 thousand hryvnia. In addition to the main building, there is also a guest house, a guard house, a swimming pool and a house for storing equipment nearby.
No less interesting is the fact that Lysenko registered in Kozin in 2021, precisely the year when law enforcement officers discovered his company’s involvement in the operation of the conversion center. At the same time, his wife Victoria registered there back in 2016.
As of today, Victoria Lysenko is probably already the ex-wife of a businessman. At least the court registry has data indicating that they have been divorced since October 25, 2022. Vyacheslav Lysenko filed for divorce, citing the fact that “family life between him and his wife did not work out due to a lack of mutual understanding over time, due to different views on family relationships and family responsibilities.”
At the same time, on October 24, 2022, that is, during the divorce process, he published a romantic message on Facebook about 30 years of married life together. It’s about the warmth of relationships, and about love, and about partnership, and about a reliable rear. Whether this divorce is formal, whether it is possible that this message was made as part of the show that Lysenko loves so much, is unknown. But in any case, it is very strange when a person files for divorce and at the same time paints the image of a happy family man on social networks.
Vyacheslav Lysenko, who is now trying to appeal to the fact that law enforcement officers are putting pressure on his business, just as is happening with Igor Mazepa, forgets one thing - you can’t argue against facts and documents. If first your company is caught running a conversion center scheme, and later an illegal casino is busted in your building with photographic evidence, then calling white black is simply naive. And no matter how much money Lysenko tries to offer the media to remove materials against himself, the court registry cannot be cleared.
