Billion-Dollar Casinos, Criminal Cases, and an Intermediary Bank: How Aliona Shevtsova Built the LEO Empire on the Basis of IBOX BANK

Aliona Shevtsova and her payment system LEO long remained in the shadow of IBOX BANK’s loud “successes.”

In reality, the bank became a convenient tool for moving billions from illegal online casinos, and Shevtsova and her companies appear in dozens of criminal cases — from money laundering to fictitious entrepreneurship. After a series of investigations, information about these schemes is being actively scrubbed. We publish this piece in full — to remind how the system worked and what is being erased from the web.

A year ago IBOX BANK was headed by Aliona Shevtsova, and around that anniversary media articles appeared claiming that thanks to her activity the bank’s performance had rapidly improved.

Indeed, by results for last year the bank ranked eighth among Ukraine’s most profitable banks. Which, in the context of the war in Ukraine, looked like a good indicator.

Jumping ahead a bit — we will say that all this bustling activity led to the fact that on 7 March 2023 the IBOX BANK lost its license — the National Bank decided to liquidate the bank due to “systematic violation of financial monitoring requirements.”

And the bank’s “successes” were linked to the energetic activity of Aliona Shevtsova, who, as obvious paid-for materials imply, thanks to her professionalism was able to pull IBOX BANK out of a financial abyss.

However, those blatantly commissioned articles omit certain nuances of Shevtsova’s professional and career rise, which qualify her not for a “Banker of the Year” award but rather for a considerable term in places not so distant.

Because the success of the past year was caused by the fact that Shevtsova needed a personal bank for the LEO payment system that she owns. This is connected to the story of IBOX BANK’s success (and subsequent fall).

Background: Aliona Shevtsova founded the financial company “Leogaming Pay” in 2013. Initially Aliona Volodymyrivna’s business was not a full-fledged payment system. It was more of a gateway between players and gaming platforms. But the company grew at a rapid pace, and by 2017 Shevtsova registered the domestic payment system “Leo” with the National Bank, which a few years later became international.

And dozens of cases involving IBOX BANK are connected with this payment system owned by LLC “Financial Company Leo.”

IBOX BANK appeared 31 years ago — in 1993. It then bore a somewhat ominous name — Bank “Avtoritet.” Only in 2002 its owners renamed it to “Agrokombank,” and it became “iBox Bank” several 14 years later, in 2016, after financier with a murky reputation Yevhen Berezovskyi joined the shareholders. He brought with him the iBox network of payment terminals, which gave the bank its new name.

However, that did not help the bank — it was heading toward a cliff. But then Shevtsova appeared on the horizon; she needed a pocket bank to develop her own payment system LEO. In 2020 she became a bank shareholder, and in 2022 she took its helm. She brought management from her companies — of which she owns several — and the relationships between them are very tangled.

The thing is, all these companies are figures in a whole series of criminal cases related to corruption, illegal extraction of funds, and servicing the activities of illegal online casinos. Which is precisely why Shevtsova’s payment system was invented back in 2013.

At the moment, despite the complexity of working with court registries during a full-scale war, it is known that Aliona Shevtsova or the heads of companies where she is a beneficiary are involved in the following criminal proceedings:

- No. ¹32013110000000298, article 369 of the Criminal Code “Offering, promising, or giving an improper benefit to an official”; - No. ¹32017100000000066, article 205 “Fictitious entrepreneurship”, article 190 “Fraud”, article 212 “Evasion of payment of taxes, fees (mandatory payments)”; - No. ¹42017000000002925, article 209 “Legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime”, article 205 Criminal Code “Fictitious entrepreneurship”; - No. ¹42018101060000202, article 190 “Fraud”, article 361 “Unauthorized interference with the operation of information (automated), electronic communication, information-communication systems, electronic communication networks”; - No. ¹42019000000000526, article 171 “Obstruction of lawful professional activities of journalists”, article 182 “Violation of the inviolability of private life”, article 255 “Creation, management of a criminal community or criminal organization, as well as participation in it”, articles 368–2 “Illegal enrichment”, article 387 “Disclosure of data of operational-search activity, pre-trial investigation”. In that “bouquet” the main figure was Shevtsova’s husband, high-ranking police officer Yevhen Shetsov.

As you can see, a solid set. Some criminal proceedings have been closed, others are still under investigation. Well, “under investigation” as things typically go in our country where bags of money are involved — cases hang in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions but move sluggishly either toward collapse or closure.

What is happening at IBOX BANK under Aliona Shevtsova’s leadership is reflected in the following extracts from court decisions that were found in the registries.

22.01.2022 The Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv did not see an administrative offense in the actions of officials of PJSC “IBOX BANK,” who, in response to a request within the framework of the National Bank’s on-site inspection regarding countering the laundering of proceeds from crime, concealed 7,5 billion UAH of transactions with LLC “FINANCIAL COMPANY LEOGAMING PAY,” and only the officials of PJSC “IBOX BANK” tried to hide transactions of over 14 billion UAH, plus did not provide information about merchants for certain MCC codes.

2021 the year the Financial Company “Leogaming Pay” won 100 000 UAH in compensation from journalists for publishing false information that damages business reputation. The “false information” was a publication from 28.10.2020 titled: “Pro-Russian Telegram channels ‘Resident’ and ‘Legitimate’ protect illegal business,” which contained the following quote: “the company LLC ‘FC ‘Leogaming Pay’’ last year processed 262 million UAH of money transfers to top up gaming accounts of illegal online casinos and bookmakers.”

The court ruling contains the delightful passage: “The plaintiff attached to the case materials a list (inventory) of all counterparties (the maintenance and publication of which is provided for by legislation in the field of financial activity) with whom Limited Liability Company ‘Financial Company Leogaming Pay’ maintains business relations. Among the listed counterparties, in particular, are PJSC JSC ‘Ukrgasbank’, KP ‘Kyivtransparkservice’, KP ‘Kharkivparkservice’, PJSC ‘PF Ukraina’, PJSC ‘Kyivstar’, PJSC ‘Bank Familnyi’, KP ‘Parking and Market’ of the Chernihiv City Council, PJSC ‘iBox Bank’, PJSC ‘First Investment Bank’. From this list it is not visible, and the defendant has not proven, that all counterparties or at least some of them are connected with gambling, in particular illegal online casinos.”

22.06.2022 The same “Leogaming” won another case in the second instance, where it forced journalists to remove a “false” publication titled “Working for the Russian Federation, offshore companies and ‘wholesale trading in computers’: how online casinos operate in Ukraine. Aliona Degrik Shevtsova), iBox Bank (iBox terminals) and others — where the money from online casinos in Ukraine goes.”

The journalists were to be made to pay another one million hryvnias in “moral compensation,” but the court refused to grant that part of the claim.

In the context of the above, an interesting story concerns the fine from the National Bank that IBOX BANK received in October 2021 for inadequate customer due diligence and violation of the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime, Financing of Terrorism and Financing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

The bank received the highest possible fine — 10 million hryvnias. Which it intended to sue the National Bank for, but it changed its mind in time — apparently the bank realized it was better to quietly pay 10 million so as not to lose billions.

By the way, at that time, for violations of the same law but regarding inadequate risk management, LLC “FC LEOGAMING PAY” was fined 549 thousand UAH.

In 2021 the IBOX BANK received a license from the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries of Ukraine (CRGL) to accept payments on behalf of online casinos and a license to “conduct activities in the field of gambling business.” So on that side everything would apparently have been fine.

But the recent “success” story led to a logical end: IBOX BANK was left without a license, and the National Bank decided to liquidate it. On 8 March, searches were conducted at IBOX BANK.

The decision to liquidate the bank was made on the same grounds on which IBOX BANK was fined in October 2021 — violation of the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime, Financing of Terrorism and Financing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Apparently, two years ago, when Russia’s “peace in their eyes” ended, Shevtsova did not understand that the situation had changed radically and that a paltry fine (in the scale of money transfers to Russia) would no longer suffice. And she continued to “cut the cash.”

In light of the above, we await further sensational developments. It will be especially interesting to learn about cooperation with the Russian Federation and the transfer of funds to Russia through Shevtsova’s payment systems, from which IBOX BANK was trying so vigorously to distance itself just a few days ago.