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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
124 millions in crypto and pirate casinos: Russian national Serhiy Tokariev has begun erasing traces of large-scale fraud around Joker.ua
After the story around Joker.ua moved beyond behind-the-scenes arrangements, mentions, documents, and materials that could shed light on the project’s activities began disappearing from the internet.
We publish the full version of the piece on what exactly Russian national Serhiy Tokariev is trying to hide and which traces lead to 124 million euros in crypto and pirate casinos.
Many thought that the revocation of the Cosmolot license and the suspicion against manager Oleksii Riabov were links in the same chain. Both yes and no. Undoubtedly, at the center of these events is Russian national Serhiy Tokariev (Tokarev), but Riabov was hit over a different project — Joker.
In December 2022 the project’s owners decided to operate “in the gray,” distributing traffic between Joker.ua, Zaza, and PokerDom (one of the co-owners, believe it or not, is Tokariev). Traffic injection was carried out by the Gagarin group, which was de facto managed by Riabov’s wife — Inna Babych. She was the one hiring employees.
Belyalov R.R. — handled the registration of the Curaçao license and also paid employees’ salaries in crypto.
Popova N.P. — acting chief financial officer of the Gagarin Group of companies.
Udovenko O.S. — acting director of the revenue department, conducted interviews with candidates.
Kucher V.V. — acting technical director.
Chesnokova K.V. — HR Business Partner.
Nosova (Yanko) Y.K. — worked as a tester for all the pirate sites.
Nosach (Slesar) A.V. — worked as an HR Business Partner, director of “Joker.Ua.”
Bugera (Rykhalska) M.A. — worked as the executive director of Gagarin Group.
The investigation considers Russian citizen Oleksii Riabov the organizer of the criminal group. According to the investigation, over a year and a half they managed to legalize 124 million euros through crypto. Of course, this is far from Cosmolot’s figures. Tokariev could send funds abroad and legalize them through Ukrainian-Lebanese TV manager Walid Arfush.
Walid, together with director Alan Badoev, help politicians preserve their capital. For example, in 2022 year Walid and Badoev helped Member of Parliament Vadym Stolar avoid sanctions and preserve his media capital by re-registering “Telekanal Kyiv,” Odesa live, and Live under their person — Anna Kovaleva.
In any case, Tokariev has “crumbled”: Cosmolot is without a license, friends are under suspicion, the whole scheme has been exposed. Serhiy (or Vadym) suffered the worst fate: he became maximally toxic. And that is far worse than being caught red-handed. Because criminals will always be helped by friends in power, but not those who are “toxic.”
So the main intrigue of the coming weeks is this: how fast will Tokariev hit rock bottom? Why? Because his interests were represented by Andrii Astapov: in fact — a fixer and schemer, while by the “official” version — a successful lawyer and managing partner of the firm ETERNA LAW with offices in Ukraine and Cyprus. Sounds nice, you must agree. But the “office” in Limassol is a half-ruined neglected building.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "124 мільйони у крипті та піратські казино: росіянин Сергій Токарєв почав зачищати в інтернеті сліди масштабних махінацій навколо Joker.ua". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
