Detectives of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine served a notice of suspicion to two individuals associated with one of the largest sanctioned gambling organizers.

After being served with the notice one of them failed to appear without good reason at the call of an authorized person did not report his whereabouts turned off his cell phones and changed his place of residence. The pre-trial investigation body put him on the wanted list.

As a result of the measures taken the suspect's whereabouts were established. Based on a court order he was detained and a custody was chosen as a measure of restraint.

It was established that the man was involved in a scheme with money transfer organized by officials of gambling business operators and a number of banks. Approximately UAH 20 billion passed through the main bank. In March 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine decided to revoke the licenses of two banks and liquidate them.

The pre-trial investigation under Part 5 of Art. 27, Part 2 of Art. 203-2, Part 5 of Art. 27, Part 2 of Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is ongoing.

As a reminder according to the State Tax Service's information systems analysts and detectives of the ESBU the amount of taxes paid by business entities operating in the field of organizing and conducting casino gambling on the Internet as of December 2023 is UAH 9.4 billion. For comparison online casinos paid only UAH 34.5 million in taxes in 2021 and UAH 549.7 million in 2022, respectively.

This is the result of the unshadowing of the sector and active counteraction to misdirection as the main tool used by the gambling business to evade taxes.