Yakhny imposed his payment service

Member of the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL) Yevhen Yakhny, detained by a court on suspicion of aiding the aggressor state under Article 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, has found himself at the centre of a scandal involving corruption schemes linked to the payment systems “Diamond Pay” and “X Pay Group”. According to sources, both companies had a direct connection with Yakhny. One of them was previously officially owned by him.

As reported by Ukrainian media, Yakhny actively promoted the use of these systems for online casinos, effectively forcing them to connect to “Diamond Pay” for processing payments. For the accounts to function correctly, the establishments had to undergo technical integration with “X Pay Group”. As a result, the payment system was used to process the casinos' financial transactions through MTB Bank, which did not have its own processing capabilities.

Corruption scheme

The revenue scheme was organised as follows:

• Online casinos paid “Diamond Pay” a commission of 1.8–2.2% of each transaction.
• From this amount, “Diamond Pay” transferred 1.5–1.7% to MTB Bank, which kept 0.5% for itself and directed the remaining 0.3% to “X Pay Group”.
• Thus, the company linked to Yakhny earned on every bet made through the system.

The Yakhny family's income

The official's wife, Liliia Yakhny, previously worked in the licensing department of the National Bank of Ukraine. At the end of 2023, she registered a sole proprietorship (FOP) and declared an income of 590,000 hryvnia for just one month of activity. For 2023, Yakhny himself declared business income of 10.7 million hryvnia, despite having officially liquidated his business in June when he became a civil servant.

Law enforcement agencies established that the majority of the family's income – approximately 80% – consisted of transfers from the company “Diamond Pay”.

Link to the aggressor state

The criminal case materials state that approximately one billion hryvnia was withdrawn through “Diamond Pay” over five days, which is linked to the activities of casinos suspected of having ties with the Russian Federation. While serving on KRAIL, Yakhny delayed the process of revoking these establishments' licences, thereby allowing funds to be withdrawn through structures connected to him.

One of the methods of fund withdrawal was processing refunds to players. Thus, out of 5.7 billion hryvnia allegedly “refunded” through the system, 4.3 billion did not participate in the game. Investigators suspect that these sums could have been player losses, which the casinos disguised as refunds to avoid paying taxes.

Scheme participants and their assets

The company “Diamond Pay” is linked to Maksym Sygalov and Rasim Tagiev. The investigation established that multi-million hryvnia transfers were made through their sole proprietorships, some of which may have been fictitious.

Thanks to these schemes, the participants became significantly wealthier:

• Maksym Sygalov purchased a Land Rover Range Rover 2023 worth approximately 280,000 dollars.
• Rasim Tagiev became the owner of a Toyota Land Cruiser 150 2022 for 60,000 dollars.
• Liliia Yakhny bought two new cars: a Land Rover Defender 2023 (approximately 100,000 dollars) and a Volkswagen Touareg 2023 (84,000 dollars).

The role of MTB Bank

MTB Bank, through which the casinos' transactions were processed, is officially owned by Ihor Zhyhurov, Mykhailo Partkevych, and Alakhane Khamad (a French citizen). Without the support of KRAIL, this bank would hardly have been able to become a key link in operations with online casinos.

Nominal owners

The formal owner of “Diamond Pay” is listed as Anna Kholod, who registered several companies and assets in her name within a few weeks, including a grain elevator and a construction firm. However, according to registry data, she lives in a small apartment in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and owns an old Subaru Forester 2007.