Originally Syndicated on April 19, 2023 @ 6:23 am
At the end of September of last year, information appeared in the mass media from the cyber police department of the National Police of Ukraine that the illegal activities of a company engaged in the creation of turnkey online casinos and technical support of such virtual projects were exposed and stopped in Kyiv.
Although the cyber police did not report which company was in question, thanks to the analysis of photos from the scene of the search and other data leaked into open access, it was quickly established that the searches came to the Kyiv office of Soft2bet, which positions itself as a European IT company in in the field of online entertainment and develops a turnkey online casino on its own engine. Soft2bet offices are located in Bulgaria, Serbia, Portugal, as well as in Cyprus and Malta.
The press service of the cyber police stated that 80 employees worked in the company’s office, and the minimum package of services cost $20 thousand. For an additional $100,000, the company set up Internet marketing to promote the resource online and attract new users. It is noted that the monthly income of the company amounted to more than $500 thousand.
The search was carried out as part of the investigation of a criminal case under article 203-2 (Illegal activity on the organization or operation of gambling games, lotteries) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Violation of this article, according to the current legislation, is punishable by a fine from 10 thousand to 40 thousand non-taxable minimum income of citizens with confiscation of gaming equipment.
Background story of Soft2bet
This is a background story. And then the interesting began. The Soft2bet company itself kept quiet about the unfortunate incident and did not comment on it in any way. Most likely because there is no official representative office in Kyiv – there is no mention of the presence of a Kyiv office on the company’s website. That is, she conducted her activities here illegally.
In addition, links to references to the search in the Kyiv office, as well as any materials about the company’s activities in Ukraine, began to rapidly disappear from the Internet. Cleared reviews, cleared job sites, which recently had many job offers in the Kyiv office of Soft2bet. Of course, the links to materials about the investigation of the company’s activities, which talked about what Soft2bet actually does, have disappeared: Fraudsters from the Soft2bet online casino are trying to clean the Internet from their villains.
Of course, if you make a little effort, you can restore part of the cleaned. But why? It would be better to look in the court registers, because the searches in the Soft2bet office did not happen just like that, but as part of the investigation of a criminal case entered in the Unified Register of Pre-Court Investigations under the number 12020100090004981. Then we will look where the “cleaners” from Soft2bet cannot reach. According to data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, there were two hearings on this case:
Let’s open them and see what they were talking about. At the first meeting, on December 8, 2020, the lawyer of Data Systems Development LLC complained that his client was not being given the property seized during the search, mainly computer equipment:
From the materials of the second court session, which took place on January 28, 2021, it turns out that the Soft2bet company “for the purpose of conspiracy carries out its activities under the brand name “Arax Development”.
It is not necessary to analyze and repeat the decisions themselves in detail – these are the usual complaints of the lawyers of the parties involved in the case about the actions of the investigation, there will be hundreds of such in the case, if the investigation, of course, is not “buried. By the way, those who are interested – the registry is open, you can read it yourself: Case 1 and Case 2
But from these two absolutely “passable” complaints of lawyers, on which the latter simply earned a little money, two things become obvious:
The first one, which was written about at the time of the search, was that the Soft2bet company operated illegally in Ukraine.
Second, the names of the companies that covered up this illegal activity surfaced: LLC “Data Systems Development” and LLC “Arax Development”. We are by no means reinventing the wheel by doing the following. And we note in parentheses that the employees of the cyber police, who are conducting the investigation in the Soft2bet case, have much more mechanisms for searching for the necessary information.
And the next logical action will be to be interested – what is this LLC “Data Systems Development” and LLC “Arax Development”, whose property was used by fraudsters from Soft2bet and which was seized by cyber police officers?
LLC “Data Systems Development” was registered on November 1, 2019, legal address – Kyiv, ul. Vasylkovskaya, d. 14, block “B”, office 208 (exactly where the searches were carried out). The authorized capital is 140,000 hryvnias. Beneficiary – Vinokur Denis Viktorovych:
If you simply move the mouse and view further information about the company, the following will appear:
Sanction lists and anti-corruption investigations. For some reason it is not surprising.
We will do the same with Arax Development LLC. Registered on 19.09.2016, legal address – Sumy city, Kooperativnaya street, 1. Authorized capital – 1,000 (One thousand) hryvnias. The manager and beneficiary is Harkavy Vladimir Nikolayevich, and he became such only on September 3, 2019:
Let’s continue further. Anyone surprised by the result?:
True, there is a significant difference between both companies. If Data Systems Development LLC showed good financial results in 2020:
But her colleague in the criminal case, Arax Development LLC, is much sadder:
The following conclusions can be drawn from this picture: LLC “Arax Development” uses a simplified system of taxation, pays a minimum contribution to the state budget – 1,157 hryvnias per month, it started paying taxes in June 2020 and stopped paying them in January 2021 – the company ” burned”, there is simply no point in keeping it afloat any longer.
In addition, there is a difference in the owners of these two companies. If Vinokur Denis Viktorovych, the beneficiary and head of LLC “Data Systems Development” is limited to her, then with the owner of LLC “Arax Development” Vladimir Nikolayevich Harkav, the story is somewhat different:
A check in the registers shows that he is involved in the activities of eleven firms. Moreover, the fact that most of them are on sanctions lists is not surprising.
However, this speaks of a simple fact: Vladimir Nikolayevich Harkavy is the chairman of all these offices. And LLC “Arax Development” is a simple screen for the activities of Soft2bet. And, judging by the fact that Harkavy became its “owner” in 2019, this firm was purposefully prepared for the role of “Sharashka’s office. Most likely, its “beneficiary” does not even suspect that he has become the developer of several dozen online casinos.
As for the owner and beneficiary of the second company, which appears in the criminal case of the investigation of Soft2bet’s actions, — Data Systems Development LLC — Denis Viktorovych Vinokur, it is difficult to give an unequivocal answer here. Only one thing can be said with certainty – he is by no means the chairman of his own company. But what is the ego’s role in the activities of Internet fraudsters from Soft2bet – let the consequence establish.
