First Casino: ties to pyramids and capital with Russian traces

When delving into the study of the gambling business in Ukraine, it seems that licenses were issued only to companies with scandalous histories related to pyramids and capital of questionable origin.

LLC "First Element", which received a license among the first and operates under the First Casino brand, already raised many questions at the time of receiving the gambling activity license.

However, these questions did not prevent it from being allowed to operate in Ukraine. The story then became even more convoluted, but traces of pyramids and, at the very least, involvement in money outflows from the so-called "DPR" and "LPR" in the history of First Casino’s founders became increasingly evident.

At the time of receiving the license, the face of First Casino was Vinnytsia entrepreneur Artem Yushkov, who moved to Berlin last year. Although a certain Andriy Romanko was the director of LLC "First Element", which operates under the First Casino brand at the time of receiving the license, now it is Oleksandr Sehen. The founders of LLC "First Element" are two closed venture funds — "UA Development" and "Uspishnyi":

Artem Yushkov, representing the brand First Casino, is the director of the first — "UA Development". His business does not end with this fund; Yushkov has a whole range of companies, through one of which he is connected to a certain Oleksandr Prochukhan, who changed his surname to Oleksandr Pan in 2018.

Oleksandr Pan-Prochukhan is listed in the "Myrotvorets" database, where he is accused of creating financial pyramids and having connections with Russians:

Up until at least October 2020, Oleksandr Pan (Prochukhan) and Artem Yushkov were co-owners of LLC Vinnytsia SКТB OPК. This company is mentioned in the media as one of the owners of the SC "Dastor" in Vinnytsia. It is precisely this that Yushkov has long planned to rebuild.

In 2018, one of Pan’s companies — iPan — was involved in a criminal case about payments from POS-terminals in Crimea and temporarily occupied territories. Searches were then conducted in three Vinnytsia companies related to this case. In addition, Oleksandr Prochukhan was a so-called "thousander" in MMM-2021 and widely advertised the pyramids "Golden Section" and "Formula of Money".

Some media outlets name Oleksandr Pan as one of the key investors of First Casino. If this is true, the story of obtaining a license by a person who was the organizer of a series of pyramids is quite interesting and raises many questions for the Commission on the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL), which issued the license to First Casino. In addition, there is a question regarding the origin of the money invested by Pan in First Casino.

KRAIL also faces another question. At the time of issuing the license, a certain Andriy Romanko was registered as the director of LLC "First Element":

He was an outright "stooge", evident not only from his "talents" as an entrepreneur — a former market trader — but also from the fact that, according to court records, he had debts in child support and a minor criminal case for causing minor bodily harm at the time of obtaining the license.

Yet KRAIL was not deterred by this. However, this is not surprising — virtually the entire gambling market in Ukraine, which experts estimate at tens of billions of dollars, was handed over to the new digitalizers under the applause of the crowd to extremely strange companies with highly suspicious capital origins.

The assertions of the few rational individuals about LLC "First Element" being a rather shady office were confirmed in a very short time.

On February 21, 2022, a regular court session was held in the Pechersk Court of Kyiv within the criminal case № 12020000000000834 concerning pyramids through which fraudsters deceitfully took possession of the funds of Ukrainian citizens. The case mentions an amount of 12 million euros.

The main focus of the case is on Questra World and Atlantic Global Asset Management, with which, incidentally, Oleksandr Pan-Prochukhan is associated.

The court’s decree from February 21 indicates the possible connection between financial pyramids with the companies "CN-DVCIF USPISHNYI" and "CN-DVCIF UA DEVELOPMENT" and the need to verify the origin of the funds forming the statutory capital of the companies LLC "PRIMUM", LLC "FIRST ELEMENT", LLC "FIRST WIN", LLC "NEBULA GAMES".

All of them are directly connected to the First Casino brand and Artem Yushkov. If we look at the list of companies entitled to organize gambling in Ukraine as of April 2022, we will see these names:

All companies that received a license from KRAIL and operate under the First Casino brand are subjects of a criminal investigation entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations № 12020000000000834 on 01.09.2020, based on indications of criminal offenses under Part 4 of Article 190 ("Fraud") and Part 3 of Article 209 ("Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds of Crime") of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

In all these companies, Artem Yushkov, who is currently in Germany, and two venture funds — "UA Development" and "Uspishnyi" — are involved in one way or another.

At the time of issuing the gambling activity licenses, a criminal case against these companies had already been opened. Everyone knows who was in charge of KRAIL. It was Borys Baum, associated with the Russian "Luzhnikovskaya" criminal organization and the Vice Speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Oleksandr Babakov, and the head of the presidential faction in parliament, known under the pseudonym David Braun.

In the context of war, the activities of online casinos collecting players’ personal data and having ties with Russia raise many questions. Questions also arise about the money circulating in these casinos, which is practically unchecked by anyone.