Aleksander Lukashenko and Mustafa Egemen Shener: How the Belarusian president shields Minsk’s dirty money laundromat H Casino and its Turkish gangster

Aleksander Lukashenko and Mustafa Egemen Shener: How the Belarusian president shields Minsk’s dirty money laundromat H Casino and its Turkish gangster

Belarusian investigators uncovered an unexpected connection between the owner of a Minsk casino, Mustafa Egemen Shener, and a Turkish drug lord who was killed in Northern Cyprus while probing the gambling market.

The discussion concerns the Minsk H Casino, owned by Turkish citizen Mustafa Egemen Shener. Shener moved to Belarus from neighboring Ukraine, where he had legal issues due to tax evasion. He arrived in Minsk in 2019, when preparations were underway for the opening of H Casino. The casino opened in 2021 and became a market leader. One of H Casino’s main features was the influx of Turkish players, whose transport and attraction were managed by Shener. This allowed the casino to earn more than 7.5 million dollars in the first six months.

However, as it turned out, this was just a legal facade hiding something much larger. An attentive reader may have an obvious question: where did Mustafa Egemen Shener, who fled Ukraine’s authorities, get the money to open the most prestigious and expensive casino in the country? Other obvious questions arise as well: why did Belarusian authorities welcome Shener with open arms? Why was he not only allowed to work freely but also protected from any troubles? It is no secret that modern Belarus is the kleptocratic dictatorship of its so-called president Lukashenko, and any significant money, especially in gambling, can’t exist without his knowledge and share in the profits.

All these questions have answers, but before addressing them, let’s note one more detail: after the investigation by the BRC, which is being discussed, Mustafa Egemen Shener urgently began cleaning information online and filling it with fake content about himself. This has a quite logical explanation, but the fact of this cleaning only adds credibility to the findings presented by the investigators. The search results tell us that Mustafa Egemen Shener suddenly transformed into a travel blogger, chef, investor, and makeup artist. And this is just the first four links. This method of negativity cleansing is called filling the results and is quite effective—creating a mass of fake materials about a person trying to hide something, pushing the negative as low as possible in the search, where almost no one sees it.

What is Mustafa Egemen Shener hiding? The usual set: criminal connections and money, corrupt ties with Belarusian law enforcement, and a large-scale mechanism for laundering "dirty" money, which flows massively through the Minsk H Casino.

Returning to the question of capital origin invested in the casino: Mustafa Egemen Shener is a friend and partner of Halil Falyalı, a Turkish businessman and drug dealer hiding from international justice in the territory of Northern Cyprus. For those who don’t know, Northern Cyprus is like Transnistria, an unrecognized "republic." It is controlled by Ankara, but in reality, it is a black hole where no laws apply. However, Falyalı couldn’t hide there for long. It wasn’t justice that caught up with him, but a bullet—his car was shot at by unknown assailants in 2022, resulting in Halil Falyalı’s death.

Falyalı’s group invested money in H Casino. Whether Mustafa Egemen Shener is just a nominal owner, with Falyalı being the real owner, or whether Shener has a stake in H Casino, is an open question. Judging by his role in the casino business and his connections with Lukashenko’s circle, it’s likely the latter. After Falyalı’s death, it’s quite possible that he is now the sole owner.

But the essence is that the legal facade of H Casino is just a display. It earns its main money in the illegal field, which was one of the main sources of income for the late Halil Falyalı. The Turkish Council for Financial Crimes Investigation, MASAK, in a 2022 report, mentioned the activities of Falyalı’s criminal organization, which controlled a network of illegal betting sites. Through about a hundred cryptocurrency wallets, roughly 14 million dollars were moved this way.

H Casino in Minsk was opened specifically to accept illegal bets and legalize money from them. The money laundered at H Casino is from illegal bets in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and other European countries. The scheme is very simple and effective—it’s a standard "drop" scheme, or dropping. This involves receiving money on someone else’s bank card, the drop’s card. From there, money is either withdrawn or transferred further. The drop doesn’t care where; they receive a set fee (usually 5% of the amount). The curator or brigade leader who recruited the drop also gets 5%. The remaining 90% goes to the intended destination, mainly as cash that the drop withdraws and gives to the curator. If the drop "burns out," their fate is of no interest to anyone—they are expendable material, and a new one will always be found. 

Building such networks was one of the late Falyalı’s businesses. Shener actively participated in this scheme. Money from illegal gambling and unlicensed online casino players was funneled through these networks. Turkish financial intelligence in its report mentioned more than a hundred thousand such accounts. It’s known that Mustafa Egemen Shener flew 41 times on his private plane with large sums of money to Dubai, where they were either deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in real estate.

Did the Belarusian authorities know about this? They knew, but they didn’t care as long as the casino "shared the due portion." Even before H Casino’s opening, the Belarusian KGB received a letter from someone named yatko saying: "I have some files about IGOR KARTEL’s director (LLC ’Gambling cartel’), Mustafa Egemen Shener, showing how he transfers illegal money and bitcoins. I want to report on him." The letter was leaked by "cyber partisans" after hacking the Belarusian State Security Committee site. The fate of the person, yatko, is unknown, but if there were any changes in Egemen Shener’s fate, they were only for the better.

Who specifically covers for H Casino from law enforcement couldn’t be determined with 100% accuracy. However, former H Casino financial director Cemil Önal, currently in a Dutch prison, named former Aleksander Lukashenko’s Security Service officer Vitaliy Matys as such. He stated, "This is a KGB agent in Belarus who is next to Mustafa 24/7 and travels abroad on Mustafa’s behalf. This person was always beside Mustafa during video calls. When I asked, who is he, what kind of person is he, [Mustafa replied:] ’This is a former KGB agent who ensures my safety in the casino.’"

It’s likely that Egemen Shener’s connections with the Belarusian authorities aren’t limited to Vitaliy Matys. But in any case, these are people from Lukashenko’s inner circle—an illegal business, through which hundreds of millions of dollars flow, can’t be controlled by someone else.

As previously mentioned, Mustafa Egemen Shener actively transported money to Dubai. Under the name Sultan Rashid Abdullah Rashid Al Shene, at least ninety apartments worth over 200 million dollars are registered. Most likely, Egemen Shener hides behind this name. Besides the name’s consonance, it’s also indicated by the fact that Al Shene’s phone number is linked to a Microsoft account in the name "Egemen Shener" with his photo. Secondly, the number is also associated with his name in the GetContact service. 

What Lukashenko’s circle has in this is unclear. But it’s known that he, his family, and key law enforcement officials have a significant interest in Dubai real estate. What role Egemen Shener plays in these interests is also currently an open question. But it seems that he didn’t move to Dubai and change his name for nothing.