UKRAINIAN WAR FOR THE DIRTY STREAMS OF ONLINE CASINOS BETWEEN BUSINESSWOMAN ALENA DEGRIK-SHEVTSOVA AND STRUCTURES OF YURA ENAKIEVSKY’S AUTHORITY
Ukrainian war for the dirty streams of online casinos between businesswoman Alena Degrik-Shevtsova and structures of Yura Enakievsky’s authority
The online casino market is one of the most murky things of today. If you often use the Internet, you probably noticed how many advertisements of various online casinos constantly pop up from all sides.
In order to lure as many gamblers as possible, casino PR people promise huge bonuses, crediting money to the account, and so on. Of course, many are tempted. This is especially true for people with below-average earnings. At first, the system works in such a way as to give you the opportunity to win and get even more involved in the virtual world of the casino. But as a result (as in the real world of gambling), the office is always in the black. This business has both its transparent and gray areas, and casino owners earn huge sums every day. In the report of the Kompromat1 portal, we will talk about a serious war that unleashed due to the redistribution of the muddy streams of online casinos in Ukraine. About how the key figures of the Ukrainian gray market of gambling services Alyona Degrik-Shervits and her husband are trying to “fill up” the team of Yura Enakievsky’s authority – in our material.
Promising industry
Casinos in their various forms have existed for more than a century. With the development of electronic technologies, the industry could not keep up with the demands of modernity, respectively, many services went online.
Since the activities of online casinos are semi-legal, it was necessary to think about how to withdraw funds from their gray business. Illegal “live” casinos worked exclusively with cash, but here it’s the other way around, there is only cashless payment.
Our history begins in 2009. At that time, the still unknown girl Alyona Degrik-Shevtsova registered the LeoPartners company in Ukraine. At first, Degrik-Shevtsova’s business provided advisory services in the financial and legal industry to corporate clients. But then the young businesswoman realized that there was no more profitable occupation than cashing out through murky schemes.
Alena Degrik-Shevtsova
As a result, Degrik-Shevtsova’s business has grown and changed the main profile of its activities. Since 2010, on the basis of LeoPartners, work on LeoGamimg has begun. Startup Degrik-Shevtsova is designed to conduct financial transactions bypassing banks. An ideal payment system for paying for semi-legal and completely illegal services. However, the financial legislation does not prohibit such activities.
In 2017, Degrik-Shevtsova established LEO Financial Company LLC. The main activity profile of the enterprise according to Ukrainian registers is “other types of monetary intermediation”. Degrik-Shevtsova’s business partners are the scandalous ex-official Vadim Gordievsky and the head of the Ukrainian Chess Federation Viktor Kapustin. The company immediately identified itself as a serious player in the payment services market, and received 11 relevant licenses from the National Bank of Ukraine.
Vadim Gordievsky
Viktor Kapustin
Degrik-Shevtsova’s companies have no problems with tax reporting, and on the contrary, they are trying to comply with all the conditions of the law. Such legal pedantry suggests that something is really wrong in Degrik-Shevtsova’s business. Therefore, we need to delve deeper into this story.
Ukrainian investigators have repeatedly inquired about the activities of Degrik-Shevtsova’s companies. The Leo group of companies, which includes an advisory department, a financial operations department, legal and other support, acquired its own bank in 2019. The choice fell on ibox bank. And this is no coincidence. It has existed on the Ukrainian banking market since 1993. True, then someone picked up a very strange name for him – “Authority”. During the last 30 years, the bank changed hands, changed its name and investors. He was not widely known in the financial services market, there is no money from individuals in it. The bank was bought by some interested people to service their “projects”. In other words, money laundering. In 2016, a dubious financial institution was acquired by a person with an equally murky biography – businessman Yevgeny Berezovsky. Berezovsky needed the bank to service his own iBox payment machines.
By 2020, Berezovsky is stuck in debt. His share in the bank had to be sold in order to at least partially repay the debt. Degrik-Shevtsova, realizing that this was a “golden ticket” for a further “laundress”, could not pass by a financial institution, and bought it at the bottom of the market. Essentially for mere pennies.
A new story began at Ibox Bank – money poured into it like a river. Moreover, absolutely dirty money without any financial monitoring and establishing the origin of funds. In connection with such activities, in 2021 the National Bank of Ukraine fined the financial institution 10 million hryvnias. Another company of Degrik-Shevtsova, OOO FC LEOGAMING PAY, also fell under the sanctions. The company was accused of violating the law of Ukraine “On Preventing and Combating the Legalization of Proceeds from Crime” and imposed a fine of UAH 549,000.
Data on NBU fines to the bank and the company Degrik-Shevtsova
But any financial sanctions in this case did not help and will not help. 10 million hryvnias is about 250 thousand dollars today. Businesswoman companies earn more every day. And if you return to the legal course, and comply with all the requirements of the regulator, 99% of the profit will disappear.
Competition and war
It is impossible to calculate the turnover and revenue of an online casino at all. But everyone understands that a lot of money is spinning in business – we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars.
It is clear that in the market for servicing such companies, Degrik-Shevtsova could not be the only one. Where there is money (especially serious money), there will always be competition.
There is another giant in the shadow financial services market – GLOBALMONEY. This company seriously competes with the structures of “Leo” Degrik-Shevtsova. How “pure” business – so transparent competition. Opponents over and over again order various information attacks against each other. Especially now, they are trying to manipulate the topic of Russia. They say that companies have ultimate beneficiaries “in the territory of the enemy.” It got to the point that Degrik-Shevtsova declared a whole war on her competitors. Employees of the Ibox Bank controlled by it sent letters to GLOBALMONEY clients with information accusing the company of all mortal sins. The case became high-profile, and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine reacted to the activities of the financial institution, fined Degrik-Shevtsova’s bank for 68,000 hryvnias. But this fine, like other financial expenses, does not stop the war. On the contrary, over time, financial institutions are trying to “bring down” each other more and more. Again, we recall that we are talking about tens of billions of dollars of the shadow economy. Nobody wants to give up even a penny.
But Degrik-Shevtsova chose a difficult organization as her enemy. GLOBALMONEY controls a huge number of payments made by players of online casinos and bookmakers. In order to process these financial transactions, you need a bank, and in this matter, GLOBALMONEY cooperates with a very difficult player – another shadow bank, Alliance. “Alliance” was created in the early 1990s in Donetsk to launder the funds of the local political elite. The real owner was (and as many say) is now a well-known criminal entrepreneur Yuri Ivanyushchenko (Yura Enakievsky), who has been living in Monaco for the last 10 years.
Yuri Ivanyushchenko
Although Yura Enakievsky lost much of his influence after Yanukovych’s flight from the country, many of his business partners were able to find themselves under the new authorities. Therefore, through old friends, Ivanyushchenko can still resolve issues in Ukraine.
Husband closes everything
The obvious violent illegal activities of Degrik-Shevtsova could not but interest law enforcement agencies. It is known that at least 5 criminal proceedings have been initiated against the businesswoman, which relate to tax evasion, bribery, fraud, forgery and others. It seems that this is not a biography of an entrepreneur, but a hardened criminal.
As a girl, the businesswoman had the surname Degrik, but then she got married and became Shevtsova. Her husband was a man in a police uniform Evgeny Shevtsov.
According to the YouControl service, Evgeny Shevtsov holds a serious position in the Ukrainian police, being the deputy head of the department – head of the department of the National Police of Ukraine. In addition to her husband, Shevtsova’s sister and mother were exposed in the criminal schemes.
It turns out that the husband in uniform is trying by any means to close the criminal stories of his wife.
But it is unlikely that it will be possible to get out of the water dry with such a train. Nevertheless, there are many criminal cases, and it becomes more and more difficult to keep track of everything over time.