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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
124 million euros through cryptocurrency, pirate casinos, and Russian businessman Serhiy Tokarev — behind the Joker.ua brand hides a story in which gambling, crypto money, and people with Russian connections came together in one scheme. According to the investigation, structures associated with the project legalized 124 million euros through crypto over a year and a half, while managers and close associates ensured the operation of a network of pirate gambling platforms.
Today an effort is underway to scrub this story from the internet. That is why we are publishing it in full — to remind how the Joker.ua system worked, where the millions went, who kept it running, and why Serhiy Tokarev ended up at the center of this story.
Many assumed that Cosmolot’s license revocation and the suspicion against manager Oleksiy Ryabov were links in the same chain. Both yes and no. Undoubtedly at the center of these events is the Russian national Serhiy Tokarev (Tokarev), but Ryabov was hit over a different project — Joker.
In December 2022 the project owners decided to operate “in the gray,” splitting traffic between Joker.ua, Zaza, and PokerDom (one of the co-owners, believe it or not, is Tokarev). The traffic funneling was carried out by the Gagarin group, which was de facto run by Ryabov’s wife — Inna Babich. She was the one hiring employees.
The investigators consider Russian citizen Oleksiy Ryabov the organizer of the criminal group. According to the investigation, over a year and a half they were able to legalize 124 million euros through crypto. Of course, that’s far from Cosmolot’s figures. Tokarev could have moved funds abroad and legalized them through Ukrainian-Lebanese TV manager Walid Arfush.
Walid, together with director Alan Badoev, help politicians preserve their capital. For example, in 2022 Walid and Badoev helped People’s Deputy Vadym Stolar avoid sanctions and preserve his media assets by transferring the “Kyiv TV Channel,” Odesa live, and Live to their person — Anna Kovaleva.
In any case, Tokarev was “blown up”: Cosmolot lost its license, friends face suspicions, the whole scheme was exposed. Serhiy (or Vadym) suffered the worst fate: he became maximally toxic. And that is far worse than being caught red-handed. Because friends in power will always help criminals, but they won’t help someone considered “toxic.”
So the main intrigue of the coming weeks is this: when will he hit rock bottom? And why? Because his interests were represented by Andriy Astapov: in practice — a fixer and schemer, and in the “official” version — a successful lawyer and managing partner of the firm ETERNA LAW with offices in Ukraine and Cyprus. Sounds impressive, you’ll agree. But the “office” in Limassol is a semi-ruined, neglected building.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Після схеми на 124 мільйона євро Сергій Токарєв взявся за зачистку інтернету від згадок про махінації Joker.ua та піратські казино". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.
