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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
🔈 An employee of the Ukrainian Favbet figures in the crypto-risk politics of a Curaçao casino
In the Casino Secrets document trove — a leak of files from the Curaçao gambling regulator — there are three episodes about the connection of Andriy Matiukha’s Favbet brand with the offshore Favorit United N.V. This is not a court verdict, but how internal policies and agreements appear in the leak and what follows if the files are authentic.
The international investigation Casino Secrets was published on 22–24 September 2026 by Follow the Money and partners. The open archive contains tens of thousands of documents from the Curaçao Gaming Authority licensing portal. A company’s presence in the archive by itself does not prove a crime: the archive expressly warns that the existence of a file does not mean illegal activity.
In August 2025 a document titled Crypto Risk Management Policy for Favorit United N.V. was signed by an MLRO (money laundering reporting officer) named Yevhen Pyroh. On LinkedIn, a person with that name has been listed for about 3,5 years as Compliance Manager of the Ukrainian Favbet.
If this is the same specialist, it implies a working link: the compliance officer of the “Ukrainian Favbet” simultaneously formalizes a crypto-betting policy for a Curaçao-licensed casino that is formally presented as a separate project. The policy itself, according to the leak’s description, explicitly allows accepting bets in cryptocurrency.
This does not prove a second salary and does not prove that the Ukrainian legal entity legally controls the offshore. It raises a different question: where does “different companies of one brand” end and a shared operational machine begin.
The second file the channel cites: Matiukha transferred Vedran Frelih 17 thousand shares of Favorit United N.V. at $1 per share. According to public mentions, Matiukha managed the Curaçao international casino in 2016–2018; Frelih became director at the start of 2022.
The international brand asset was “sold for pennies” already when Matiukha had formally left the directorship — so control allegedly did not disappear. Other publications on the same documents give the opposite emphasis: after the share transfer Frelih officially became the sole beneficiary of the international structure, and Matiukha retained the Ukrainian component.
Without an appraisal by an independent valuer and the full set of corporate resolutions it is impossible to say whether $1 is the market price for the package, a nominal transfer to a partner, or a scheme to retain control. There is only the price in the document and a split of interpretations.
The third episode: in 2025 the offshore casino obtained the right to use the Favbet trademark. At that time, by the same logic of the channel, Matiukha was no longer director of Favorit United N.V. and had already sold the shares. The channel’s question is simple: on what basis does a “foreign” casino continue to operate under the brand if ownership has already been “cut off”.
An alternative explanation is also obvious: the brand, the offshore, and the Ukrainian LLCs can be linked by licensing agreements even if the N.V. shares are re-registered to another person. That is why the date of transfer of trademark rights is more important than the sarcasm. If the rights were granted after the “sale,” it is either a normal licensing chain or a marker that the formal exit from the company did not sever the brand.
Favorit United N.V. from Curaçao has for years appeared in investigations as the international link of the Favbet brand (favbet.com site, sublicensing through the Curaçao circuit). Ukrainian companies in the group are associated with Andriy Matiukha; some casino-segment licenses were already under scrutiny by regulator PlayCity. Separately in the media — wage debts and the launch of mirrors after licensing problems. This is background, not proof based on the three new files.
If the documents are not forged: Ukrainian compliance, the offshore crypto policy, the sale of shares for a dollar, and the late transfer of the trademark form a single picture — international Favbet and Ukrainian Favbet may be formally “different,” but operationally and brandwise remain one circuit. Only the full Casino Secrets files, a comment from Favorit United N.V., and Matiukha’s own response can confirm or refute this. As of the morning of 25 September there is no public refutation of these three points.
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