The mastermind behind illegal casinos: Maksym Krippa’s journey from fraud to owning key assets in Ukraine
17.10.2024 16:10
Maksym Polyakov and Maksym Krippa are both notable Ukrainian entrepreneurs, yet they operate in distinctly different sectors. Polyakov, often likened to Elon Musk, focuses on space technology and innovation. He is involved in launching rockets, nurturing young talent, and promoting innovative ideas.
In contrast, Maksym Krippa leads a far more complex life. He appears to be involved in a wide range of activities—from playing football and blogging to advising unwell executives and cooking. Interestingly, he has also been spotted jumping into different volcanoes. What drives this multifaceted individual, and what underlies his varied pursuits? What are the true ventures of Krippa and Polyakov, and how did Krippa come to acquire the "Dnipro" hotel, allegedly on behalf of associates linked to a Russian crime syndicate?
Maksym Krippa buys a piece of Wikipedia, but not for long
Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedia administrators have noticed persistent attempts to post positive articles about a person named Maksym Krippa (Maks Polyakov’s dating and online casino business partner, — read. accomplice). At the same time, several flattering articles about him were posted on "drain" sites, which had one thing in common — the repeated surname "Krippa", as well as the persistent mention of the words "vulcano", "game" and "self-help" in various combinations.
In this way, information about the real Maksym Krippa, who is really related to the "Vulkan" brand and the Ukrainian "Samopomich" party headed by Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, was to be pushed out of search engines. As well as information about the president of "Rostelecom" PJSC Mikhail Oseevsky and the Finstar investment fund, whose main co-owner is the Russian entrepreneur Oleh Boyko.
What was Maksym Krippa really hiding?
It’s about what Maksym Krippa really wants to hide. In Russia, as in Ukraine, online gambling is officially banned. However, some providers treat this ban selectively. One of them is "Rostelecom". The provider provides access to the gambling sites "Vulkan", "CasinoX", and "Joycasino", forbidden by Roskomnadzor. However, not to all of them. Online casinos in Germany, Italy, Croatia, and Romania previously operated under this brand, but the "Vulkans", opened from the IP of the "Rostelecom" provider belong to one person - a Ukrainian businessman and former candidate for the Kyiv City Council from the "Samopomich" party Maksym Krippa. How did a Ukrainian entrepreneur manage to influence the Russian internet giant and bypass the Roskomnadzor ban?
Krippa Maksym - the happy owner of the "Dnipro" hotel
It is useless to expect a truthful declaration from Maksym Krippa, so we have to be content with publicly available data. As described in the OpenData resource, a person with the initials Krippa M.V. owns 7 companies.
In addition to the property – the "Dnepr" hotel. Recently, there has been increasing information that Krippa has acquired another “toy” – the "Dnipro" hotel and has become one of its co-owners. The "Dnipro" is located in a luxurious, promising location that will be preferred by the foreign VIP vacationers, rather than the local ones. The hotel history of the purchase and sale began back in May. A source at Prozorro published a statement about the sale of this majestic hotel, located in the heart of the capital – not far from the "Dnipro", on the central street Khreshchatyk. A gorgeous view, and picturesque landscapes – the hotel can boast of all these. In just a couple of months, the "Dnipro" passed into the ownership of the "Smartland" company for 1 billion and 111 million hryvnia. Interestingly, the starting price of the hotel was slightly higher than 80 million, and as many as 29 companies participated in the tender race.
Two Makses: Krippa and Polyakov
Maksym Krippa has been involved into the gambling business in Ukraine for a long time and is associated with IT companies "EvoPlay" and "Clone Fish". Krippa’s partner in the gambling business was an American businessman with Ukrainian roots, Maks Polyakov, who made his fortune on dating and erotic web chats in Dnipro and Zaporizhzhya.
In the early 2010s, Polyakov and Krippa decided to expand their gambling assets and opened a joint business in the online casino sector. The joint company office is located in the capital of Ukraine – Kyiv.
The path to success of Maksym Krippa and Polyakov
The most successful acquisition of the Krippa-Polyakov group was the "Vulkan" and"Vulkan"gaming machine brands. "EvoPlay" acquired exclusive rights to use the product under these names from the "Ritzio Entertainment Group", created by Oleh Boyko based on the acquired stake in the Moscow network of "Vulkan" gaming salons. "EvoPlay" successfully closed all online casinos that previously operated under the "Vulkan" label.
When "EvoPlay" dealt with the last competitors who worked under the brand "Vulkan", Krippa and Polyakov began to develop gambling resources under this name on their own. New "Vulkans" started to appear in batches. Every day, a dozen similar gambling resources with identical designs and sets of games are launched. Most of them have software products from "EvoPlay".
The brand owners personally churn out websites in huge volumes without specifying the owners and registration data. Thus, businessmen get the opportunity to earn money in markets, where online gambling is prohibited. Neither Krippa nor Polyakov risk anything. Neither complaints nor courts can reach the real owners and prove their involvement in anonymous websites. The system works like the heads of a hydra. When one website is blocked, 10 clones with similar addresses and identical templates appear.
Another businessman, Maksym Polyakov, used gaming programs “from Krippa” – a former Ukrainian citizen who lived in Zaporizhzhia, and is now a citizen of Great Britain and, possibly, the USA. Now his name is different – Maksym Polyakov, but the spelling of his name and surname in English has not changed his inner essence at all. When he used to be a Ukrainian citizen, Maksym Polyakov also made his fortune not with Christian activities. He owned dozens of dating sites, and very dubious ones at that, which were operated by his company Together Networks Limited.
Maksym Krippa’s volcanoes erupt with stolen money
In 2009, he added gambling to his successful dating, but it was completely legal at first. The company he founded, "Murka", brought to light a dozen gaming sites that had the appropriate licenses and were therefore within the legal field, but the thirst for profit forced Maks Polyakov to go further. He founded a network of online casinos under the general name "Vulkan" ─ already completely illegal. They did not have licenses, they used pirated copies of gaming programs "Novomatic", "Net Ent", and "Playtech". Krippa’s programmers skillfully built into their algorithms aimed at the mandatory complete ruin of the client. The sites were elusive. They regularly changed addresses, and their fictitious owners hid in distant offshores, protecting themselves and the real owners from searches and prosecution.
In a short time, Maks Polyakov and Krippa have produced one hundred and fifty clones, united by one common root in the title “Vulkan”.
Having felt the success with "Vulkan", Krippa and Polyakov expanded their activities, launching several more large-scale projects, including "CasinoX" and "JoyCasino". These projects developed due to aggressive marketing, which Polyakov had already used when promoting dating resources. As a result, we all know that «Batman» told the «Joker» how to solve problems with access to "JoyCasino" at the final battle time. However, not only Batman. Aggressive advertising led to many memes on the Internet, which further contributed to the development of Krippa and Polyakov’s gambling resources.
The fake list of "Samopomich" and Maksym Krippa’s "Samopomich" infiltration
Among legal projects, Maksym Krippa tried to get a license for the Champion-lottery.com Internet lottery. Here he had to negotiate with politicians and find their support for the initiative. That’s when the first thought of his own political career flashed through his mind. The first and so far only pancake turned out lumpy.
The businessman ran for the Kyiv City Council from the "Samopomich" party. He lost the election but managed to earn a good amount of money. Maksym Krippa created an alternative party list and began selling places on this list. Dozens of Ukrainian businessmen fell for the scam. When the scam was revealed and the heat was on, Krippa left for Russia and kept a low profile temporarily. This is what representatives of the "Samopomich" party, which found itself embroiled in a major scandal, had to say about it:
"We were surprised to learn that Maksym Krippa was selling seats in the next elections on behalf of the "Samopomich" association. The most striking thing in this story is the complete lack of adequacy of the people who managed to pay "fees" to get on the list for the next parliamentary elections, which no one had even compiled yet. After law enforcement officials contacted the party, we have been unsuccessfully trying to contact a former member of our political force M. Krippa."
How the scandal and the fraud case were hushed up remains a mystery. But soon after, Krippa returned to Ukraine and continued to gamble unhindered. He was involved into several criminal cases related to the gambling business, but time after time he came out unscathed.
It is not excluded that Maksym Krippa and Maksym Polyakov worked on other political projects. And not only in Ukraine. This is evidenced by the impunity of IT businessmen and the huge opportunities that, despite legislative prohibitions, became available to the tandem in the field of online gambling in Ukraine, Russia, and other countries.
Why did Maksym Krippa rush into politics, and Maksym Polyakov show Kuchma a rubber rocket?
Neither Maksym Krippa nor Polyakov have created independent political projects. However, politics, especially in Ukraine, is of interest to one of Krippa’s key long-term partners, Russian oligarkh Konstantin Malofeev. For a long time, Maksym Krippa worked as Malofeev’s manager and promoted his projects in Ukraine. It was Malofeev, who helped his CEO partially bypass gambling bans in the Russian Federation. Maksym Krippa’s online casinos and those of his namesake Polyakov are blocked by Roskomnadzor but are freely available to "Rostelecom". Even Malofeev finds it difficult to influence Roskomnadzor. But things are different with the country’s largest internet provider. From 2010 to 2013, Konstantin Malofeev was the company’s largest minority shareholder - he owned 7.22% of "Rostelecom" shares.
The oligarkh managed to put his manager Aleksander Provotorov at the head of the company. Through him, Malofeev could make any changes to the list of sites blocked by the provider. It was then that "Vulkan", "CasinoX" and "JoyCasino" of Maksym Krippa and Maks Polyakov began to disappear from the list of blocked sites. The price for the oligarkh’s help was a part of the "EvoPlay" company and certain services in the political sphere. In March 2017, "Rostelecom" PJSC was headed by the former deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development and former vice-governor of St. Petersburg Mikhail Oseevsky.
Ольга Балакина
