Owner of Techiia Oleg Krot: do traces through 1xBet lead to Russian intelligence services?

Owner of Techiia Oleg Krot: do traces through 1xBet lead to Russian intelligence services?

Last year’s scandal over the unclear activities of Techiia holding owner Oleg Krot flared up and then faded, buried under a pile of new, no less interesting scandals.

However, the problem was not resolved — the accusations against Oleg Krot of ties to Russia were never denied by anyone. Briefly recalling the essence of the scandal: last year Forbes, in the piece “Quiet current. Founders of the IT holding Techiia say they spent more than 2 billion UAH on the army. Is that possible?” asked how Oleg Krot could have spent on aid to the Armed Forces an amount that exceeds his holding’s income several times and is nearly equal to the turnover of the firms within the holding.

No answers to that question were found, and Krot in his rather lengthy response to the question also failed to clearly explain the origin of the money. Moreover, it was not even possible to obtain information on where that money was spent. Supposedly that information was “forbidden to be provided by the SBU.”

Perhaps, but other funds — for example, Return Alive and the Prytula Foundation, the Poroshenko Foundation, not to mention other, smaller funds — do not hide such information. Besides regular PR (in this case PR is not a negative phenomenon — publicity attracts new sponsors and also shows where the money went) they report on their activities.

In Krot’s case there was PR as well, supported skillfully by recognizable people.

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But, with all due respect to those people, they are not experts in finance or in charity. And there was no more-or-less decent report. And remember, we are talking about a huge sum by Ukrainian standards — more than 60 million dollars.

Instead there were denials from Krot, accusations of an information attack against Techiia and threats to sue the “slanderers.” Which, however, was also logical. For the sake of objectivity it is worth mentioning that so far nothing has been heard about any court proceedings, while news of yet another aid shipment to the Armed Forces continues to regularly surface online:

All that is fine, but the question raised by Forbes — where did the money come from and where was it spent? — remains unanswered.

As does another question that emerged as a result of the scandal — about ties between Oleg Krot and the other Techiia co-owner, Yuriy Lazebnikov, with the Russian bookmaker 1xBet. In March of last year, when Russian tanks were wrapping the guts of Kyiv residents around their tracks, 1xBet received a license to operate in our country. That license was eventually revoked after a wild scandal, but that did not remove questions about Oleg Krot.

And here we return to the connections of the founders and owners of the IT holding Techiia with Russians and with representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, who in turn are closely intertwined with Russian intelligence services. Of course, one wants to believe that all of this is mere coincidence (at least that is what Oleg Krot claims), but it is hard to believe.

So, as a result of journalistic investigation — if one was conducted by the SBU or other state bodies, nothing is known about it — the following came to light. After the scandal over the Russian bookmaker 1xBet’s license, the latter made Boris Baum the first deputy head of the consultative-expert council of KRAIL (Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries). He was removed from his position.

It should be understood that he is by no means an innocent lamb — Baum is the gray cardinal of the gambling market in our country and is most closely connected with Russians. So the word “scapegoat” in this case only means that he ended up in the public sphere. In the nonpublic chain it continued further.

And it led to Russia. Next in that chain appeared one Sergey Tsybin, who was listed as director of LLC “Tvoi Bettingova Kompaniya” (TBK), which received two licenses to operate in Ukraine under the 1xBet brand. He is a former banker. What kind of banker Tsybin was is unknown, but in TBK he is an obvious “pound” — Sergey Tsybin has a trail of unpaid consumer loans and debts on ordinary credit cards.

At the same time TBK has a charter fund of 30 million UAH, and it paid 142 million UAH for the two licenses.

Tsybin is also registered as founder of a whole number of firms, but in this case we are interested in LLC “Me-Estate”.

Because in 2018 year, according to registers, LLC “Me-Estate” changed its beneficiary and director — instead of Sergey Tsybin it became Yuriy Lazebnikov. He is a co-founder and managing partner of Techiia holding. And a business partner of Oleg Krot in that holding.

In 2021 year both of them officially announced cooperation with 1xBet, development of a joint project and emphasized that they were partners of 1xBet in Ukraine. Those statements are not currently being denied, because it would be absurd to deny the obvious, but both Oleg Krot and Yuriy Lazebnikov evade questions on the matter.

But let us return to the chain further. Techiia’s chief lawyer is Roman Rodin. His brother Oleksandr Rodin until 17 February 2023 was director of LLC “Tvoi Bettingova Kompaniya”:

Recall that LLC “Tvoi Bettingova Kompaniya” received two licenses last March to operate in Ukraine under the 1xBet brand. That licensing was accompanied by the law firm “Tarasiuk and Partners.”

As InformNapalm found out, that firm is registered at the same address as the legal company “Pryker,” whose owner is Artem Shylo. At the time TBK received its licenses, Shylo was head of the Main Department for Counterintelligence Protection of Critical Infrastructure Facilities and Countering Terrorist Financing within the SBU. He still heads it now.

Returning to Techiia holding, it turned out that its composition included LLC “Dainaline Construction,” co-owners of which were Oleg Krot and Serhiy Titov.

The latter is the godfather of Artem Shylo. After all this came to light, Shylo said that he does not communicate with Titov and in general “does not remember who baptized his child.” Maybe. But there are too many coincidences.

Among them is Krot’s statement that Titov received part of the company for “handling the bureaucratic side and land registration.” That may be. But it also turned out that Titov was co-owner in two other companies. And his partner was the wife of Artem Shylo’s head — Oleksandra Klimchuk. Their “owner” is now Oleksandr Skuratov. At the same time he “moonlights” as a driver for Artem Shylo:

And Yevhen Lyashchenko, who instead of Titov became “owner” of Dainaline Construction, recently became a member of the management board of Ukrainian Railways.

This is to say that we are still waiting for an investigation into Oleg Krot’s ties with Russian intelligence services. Likewise, we have not seen an investigation into Boris Baum and other people involved in issuing gaming licenses to Russians.

Who Boris Baum is and his ties to Russian organized crime and State Duma deputy Alexander Babakov do not need explanation. Those who do not know — we refer them to Myrotvorets.

And here Tsybin’s name resurfaces: “Boris Baum helped establish contact between Semiokhin, Karshkov and Mykhailo Spektor, and now the latter is responsible for 1xBet’s success in Ukraine and promotes the interests of the project’s Russian founders. For Spektor’s work Sergey Tsybin was obtained as the nominal owner and director for the legal entity LLC ‘Tvoi Bettingova Kompaniya’, which was to receive a license under 1xBet. The licensing process was handled by lawyer Sergey Tarasiuk. In KRAIL Spektor had Baum’s support. And at the start of the year that could have been enough. But the documents for applying for one license were only ready in February, and for the second — in March 2022 year. So the war adjusted the plans.”

As you can see, the Myrotvorets investigation contains other names mentioned in our investigation. Alongside the names of representatives of the Russian OCG “Luzhnikovskaya,” whose most prominent representative is Mykhailo Spektor.

And — 1xBet, which was so promoted by the co-owner of the holding Techiia who now “actively helps the army,” Oleg Krot. He now avoids the topic of cooperation with the Russian bookmaker, but in the same Forbes investigation into the unclear origin of the money “transferred to the Armed Forces,” Oleg Krot could not clearly explain the holding’s revenues that would allow him to make such extremely large donations to the army, stating only that half of the proceeds for 2021 year were brought in by one of his businesses — the esports corporate group WePlay Holding.

Both in 2021 year and even after the start of the full-scale war the esports company WePlay Esports continued to cooperate with the Russian bookmaker 1xBet. Journalists found that 1xBet works with WePlay Esports events, including online seasons of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitions. On 1xBet’s sites WePlay Esports events from Ukraine are regularly announced, with the bookmaker offering bets on them. Moreover, the Russians organized broadcasts of the 5 season of the WePlay Academy League, which took place from 25 July to 14 August 2022 year.

After the scandal erupted, those statements disappeared from the Russian bookmaker’s sites, which also gives cause for thought. Obviously, once the scandal hit, Techiia tried to remove all traces from 1xBet’s sites. But how can that be done without having direct contact with the Russian bookmaker and without influencing it?

The claim that Techiia spent 60 million dollars to help the Armed Forces — which is doubtful, since it is supported by nothing but Oleg Krot’s statements — also does not remove all the questions listed above.

Because it is worth recalling what makes such companies dangerous. One side of the coin is best expressed by Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, first deputy chairman of the parliamentary commission on anti-corruption policy: “The gambling market is quite specific. It is considered quite risky from the point of view of ‘strange money’ — money that has no explanations… Now imagine a situation where behind a gambling company stands an aggressor country that needs to legally bring Russian corrupt money into Ukraine. In order to have operational funds here to buy agents, spotters, banal bribes to officials so that they do not look the wrong way or do look where they should.”

But there is another side — such firms are dangerous because they collect massive amounts of personal data of people who play on their sites. Where that data goes and how it is used can only be guessed. Especially if Russian intelligence services stand behind the company. In that context, what are 60 million dollars?

So there are no documents with GRU or FSB signatures and stamps proving that Techiia owners Oleg Krot and Yuriy Lazebnikov are their agents. But questions in light of all the strange coincidences outlined above remain. And they lead to quite concrete thoughts. Especially against the backdrop of other scandals over unclear “esports” teams that suddenly acquired huge state assets by winning dubious tenders.

In this regard the position of another public figure who defended Oleg Krot looks rather strange. Servant of the People faction leader David Arakhamia said in an interview with Forbes: “I know Krot and I know to whom and for what money they helped the Armed Forces. I can confirm that several tens of millions of dollars were transferred.”

Author: Olha Shmatko