Gambling industry in Ukraine: How Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova and her iBox Bank are involved in laundering billions from underground casinos
25.10.2024 21:10
In 2023, the gambling mafia was dealt perhaps its most sensitive blow.
On March 7, 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine revoked the banking license of "iBox Bank" and also decided to liquidate this financial institution.
As reported by the NBU’s press service, "iBox" was stripped of its license due to systematic violations of legislation in the area of anti-money laundering requirements.
On the next day, the Bureau of Economic Security and the SSU reported on the disclosure of a large-scale fraudulent scheme at "iBox Bank".
The Bureau detectives uncovered a criminal scheme involving bank officials, more than 20 entities subject to it, and gambling business operator companies.
"The banking institution likely facilitated the gambling business in evading particularly large taxes. The pre-determined amount of unpaid business taxes is 400 million UAH," the Bureau of Economic Security stated.
The tax evasion scheme was established through controlled unlicensed mirrored web resources of online casinos and betting, which were set up to accept payments via "miscoding" and split money transfers.
To replenish accounts on unlicensed gambling and betting sites on the Internet, cash was deposited through the iBox self-service terminal network.
Further, the funds were credited to the accounts of gambling business operator companies, even in cases of turnover limit exceedance. These legal entities operate under a simplified taxation system and are not registered VAT payers.
The investigation established that the volume of funds transferred through the bank amounted to about 20 billion UAH, of which approximately 400 million UAH in taxes were unpaid.
The SSU added that they documented numerous instances of payments made with cards from Russian banks. This occurred even after the outbreak of full-scale conflict, bypassing the relevant ban by the National Bank.
And already on Friday, March 10, 2023, the President of Ukraine enacted NSDC sanctions aimed at an array of individuals and legal entities closely tied to the shadow gambling business. Among them are key links in the schemes spun at "iBox Bank". This involves "Financial Company ’Leo’", registered in Kyiv, and the Cypriot offshore "Leo Partners". From now on, their assets and activities in Ukraine are blocked for five years.
The ultimate beneficiary of both "firms", according to open data, is Alyona Shevtsova (née Dehrik) – the former chair of the supervisory board of "iBox Bank". However, on February 27, just before the investigation surrounding the bank became public, Shevtsova relinquished her chairmanship, citing excessive workload.
Back in 2013, Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova, the wife of a former high-ranking police officer, founded the financial company "Leogaming Pay". Initially, Alyona’s business wasn’t a full-fledged payment system. It was more of a gateway between players and gaming platforms. However, the enterprise grew rapidly, and in 2017, Shevtsova registered the national payment system "Leo" with the NBU, which became international a few years later.
Unfortunately, during her ascent, Degrik-Shevtsova accumulated not only assets but also criminal cases. The online publication MIND.UA cited data from the Ministry of Justice, stating that from 2016 to 2020, Alyona Shevtsova and her husband, Yevhen Shevtsov, as well as their business partners Viktor Kapustin and Vadym Hordievskyi, "collectively managed at least ten companies, many of which became subjects of criminal cases on charges of ’Fraud’, ’Laundering of proceeds of crime’, and ’Fictitious entrepreneurship’."
Criminal cases involving the companies of Yevhen Shevtsov, Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova, Viktor Kapustin, Vadym Hordievskyi and their companies
According to data from the National Bank, "iBox Bank" appeared 29 years ago in 1993. It originally bore the rather ominous name "Autoritet" (in the 1990s, this word was more associated with "criminal" than, for example, "moral"). Only in 2002 did the owners rename it "Agrocombank". It became "iBox Bank" another 14 years later, in 2016, after financier with a "murky" reputation, Yevhen Berezovskyi, joined the shareholders. He "brought along" the iBox payment terminal network, which gave the "firm" its new name.
However, despite the name change and acquiring payment terminals, the bank could not improve its affairs and was rapidly moving toward bankruptcy and liquidation. But at the end of 2019, Alyona Shevtsova appeared on the horizon. Alyona needed a controlled bank to service her financial flows, while the bank’s main shareholders wanted access to these flows. And by 2020, she became a shareholder of "iBox Bank" (currently, Alyona Shevtsova has concentrated just under 25% of its shares; just before the conflict began, she also became the head of its supervisory board), and key positions were taken by people from the "Leo" she controlled.
Since then, according to image publications, things have looked up for "iBox". Simultaneously, the regulator began to accumulate questions regarding the bank’s involvement in money laundering. In the autumn of the previous year, for violating financial monitoring and the law against legalizing criminal proceeds (the financial institution allegedly did not conduct adequate checks on new and existing clients), the NBU fined "iBox Bank" 10 million UAH. This is the largest fine prescribed for such a violation. Already in June of the following year, the National Bank had similar complaints against "iBox" again.
It is important to note that since 2021, structures associated with Shevtsova have officially declared their participation in the gambling business. Specifically, in May 2021, LeoGaming purchased a license to set up a casino and/or bookmaker’s office in the Odessa hotel "Alice Place". Several months later, "iBox Bank" received a license from the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries of Ukraine (KRAIL) for accepting payments in favor of online casinos. Already this year, "iBox" received a license for "conducting activities in the gambling business".
Thus, Shevtsova is building an entire gambling empire with a controlled bank at its center. But the habit of defrauding the state with money played a bad joke on her. Will Alyona Shevtsova be able to wriggle out again? It is quite possible. After all, the presidential decree on sanctions does not mention all the companies associated with her involved in gambling "schemasonry". And Alyona is not personally named there either.
Юрий Лобачев
