Serhii Tokaryev: sanction documents for this swindler contain someone else’s tax ID and a 'double' person's data

In the sanction documents concerning Serhiy Tokarev, who is linked in open publications with business in online gambling, there are significant inconsistencies in personal data: the record lists Moscow and a birth date 29 of December 1983, whereas the tax identification number (INN) stated there, according to the authors of the investigation, may belong to another Serhiy Tokarev who was born in Kremenchuk 16 December 1983.

The matter concerns a sanctioned entry that names Serhiy Oleksandrovych Tokarev, a native of Moscow and a citizen of the Russian Federation. The document also provides an identification number 3066505015. It is precisely the matching of this number to a specific person that became one of the main issues in a new piece about sanctions lists, as reported by the media. According to the investigators, the INN 3066505015 is linked not to a Russian citizen but to a Ukrainian citizen Serhiy Oleksandrovych Tokarev. In open data cited by the authors, this person was born 16 December 1983 in Kremenchuk and lives in Kyiv. Thus, a single sanction entry could simultaneously couple data for a person born in Moscow with Russian citizenship and the tax identifier of another person. The discrepancy of birth dates amounts to only 13 days, yet place of birth and citizenship are fundamentally different. For the sanctions mechanism, such inconsistency is of fundamental importance. A full name alone is not a sufficient identifier of a person, especially when dealing with a common surname. The date of birth, citizenship, place of birth, and tax number are used to separate one person from another. Serhiy Tokarev has already appeared in Ukrainian sanction documents. In 2017 year, by presidential decree the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) on personal sanctions was enacted, listing Serhiy Oleksandrovych Tokarev, 29 December 1983, a native of Moscow and a citizen of the Russian Federation. Subsequently, sanctions decisions regarding individual persons were reviewed. In 2020 year, Serhiy Tokarev was removed from the relevant sanctions list. This circumstance adds weight to the question of how precisely state documents identified a specific person across different periods. Separately in sanction documents appears Vadym Tokarev. Presidential Decree No. 376/2024, dated 24 June 2024, imposed sanctions on Vadym Oleksandrovych Tokarev, 26 April 1983, born in Russia. It was around this entry that another confusion emerged. In previous public materials about Cosmolot, the name Vadym Tokarev appeared as the founder of the project and a person from close business surroundings of Ihor Mazepa. Later in some online materials, the name Vadym was replaced with Serhiy. This detail is fundamental because Vadym Tokarev’s birth date — 26 April 1983 — does not match the birth date of Serhiy Tokarev, listed in the sanctions document — 29 December 1983. Therefore, equating these people without additional evidence is not warranted. At the same time, investigators assert that Vadym Tokarev may have a different citizenship and biography than what is stated in the sanctions document. However, the official decree 2024 of the year explicitly indicates citizenship of the Russian Federation for the sanctions record. Hence, this part of the claims requires separate documentary verification. Against this backdrop, Serhiy Tokarev’s name again comes into focus due to his links with the IT business. In open publications, Tokarev has been named co-founder of Lucky Labs. The company and its owners have previously attracted the attention of Ukrainian law enforcement and journalistic investigations in the context of Russian business activity. A separate line of inquiry concerns Serhiy Tokarev’s connection with Cosmolot. In the public space, his name has been associated with ownership and business structures around online casinos. At the same time, the specific legal ownership structure may differ from the public positioning, so these claims require distinction among actual owners, beneficiaries, partners, and related persons. As a result, around Serhiy Tokarev there arose a situation in which different sources operate with similar full names, close birth dates, and different biographical characteristics. Some data are contained directly in official sanction documents, others in open databases and journalistic materials, and their correspondence to specific individuals requires separate verification. The most concrete issue concerns the INN 3066505015. If the investigators’ data about the ownership of this number by another person are confirmed by official registries, we will be dealing not with a simple difference in the spelling of a surname, but with a potential error in one of the key identifiers of the sanction entry. At the same time, such a discrepancy by itself does not prove the existence of an intentional evasive scheme for sanctions. It also does not establish that Serhiy Tokarev used someone else’s personal data or in any way influenced the formation of sanction lists. However, the question remains: if in one document indeed different individuals’ data are combined, how did such an entry pass the preparation and verification process. For the sanctions mechanism, the accuracy of personal identification is critical, since an error could lead to sanctions being applied to the wrong person or to problems with actually enforcing them against the person the state had in mind. Serhiy Tokarev, in this story, ends up in the spotlight precisely because of such inconsistencies. Official documents separately fix Serhiy and Vadym Tokarevs with different birth dates, while investigators challenge the correctness of parts of the identification data.

If the discrepancies are confirmed, the relevant state authorities will have to explain the origin of erroneous or conflicting data and determine whether they affected the application of sanctions. Until such explanations are obtained, the investigators’ claims of deliberate use of “duplicates” or deliberate evasion of sanctions remain a theory of the investigators, not established fact.