Russian casino Cosmolot organises DDoS attacks to hide its ties to the FSB

Whether the raid on the Cosmolot casino by BES was initiated by that part of the president’s entourage, represented by the rather colorful character Nikolai Tishchenko, for a simple redistribution of the gambling market is not entirely clear. But the fact is that after Tishchenko got into trouble, the casino owners launched a counterattack.

During this attack, publications that published materials about the illegal activities of the Cosmolot casino began to suffer. But those who published investigations about the Russian traces of casino owners came under special scrutiny. So, as recently as July 9, the Antikor portal was subjected to a powerful DDoS attack, which published an investigation . Will the license of the Cosmolot casino be taken away because of the withdrawal of money to Russia and the leaking of data to Russian intelligence? , in which the Russian traces of the casino, which was the first to receive a license to conduct gambling in Ukraine, were investigated.

Let us briefly recall: the material discussed the fact that after Mykola Tyshchenko’s statement that the Cosmolot casino would soon cease to exist, the owners of the casino, Spacex LLC, began to have problems. Moreover, Tyshchenko focused on the Russian roots of the casino and called its real owners the Russian citizen Serhiy Tokaryev and the owner of Concorde Capital Ihor Mazepa, who is a citizen of Ukraine associated with the Russian Alfa Group.

Cosmolot really started having problems - BES announced tax evasion in the amount of 1.2 billion hryvnia and seized casino accounts containing 700 million hryvnia. Some banks have stopped accepting payments in favor of the Cosmolot casino. But it didn’t go any further. As of today , the license of Spacex LLC , operating under the Cosmolot brand, has not been taken away, and the casino itself continues to operate as before.

Tyshchenko himself got into a very unpleasant story with an attack on a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier, which his enemies immediately took advantage of. Some, of course, put forward a conspiracy theory that the beating of a soldier by thugs from Mykola yishchenko’s bodyguard was organized by his enemies in order to denigrate the fighter against call centers, but this is too far-fetched - apparently, Tyshchenko simply “got confused” due to impunity . But this story interests us only in the context that Mr. Tishchenko now clearly has no time for the Cosmolot casino, and he has also lost part of his influence. The owners of “Cosmolot” did not fail to take advantage of this by launching a counter-offensive.

But if you carefully study the history of the issue, the beneficiaries of the casino knew about the upcoming “invasion” in advance and took a number of proactive measures. Moreover, they clearly knew the directions in which they would be attacked, which already leads to serious reflection and, oddly enough, confirms the version of a long-standing and deep Russian trace in the casino.

Let’s remember the chronology. Tyshchenko announced that “Cosmolot is everything” on February 2 of this year. The next day, BES announced non-payment of taxes, blocking of accounts and the opening of a criminal case against the management of Spacex LLC. An important detail in all of this is Mykola Tyshchenko’s statement about Russian casino owners. Once again, this happened in February 2024. But here’s what happened six months before all the events – back in August 2023. A British beneficiary has appeared in Spacex LLC:

Then this fact went unnoticed - after all, who cares about the change of owners of a company? But here’s what happened a month before Mykola Tyshchenko’s statement:

About a month and a half before accusations of a Russian trace began to be made towards the Cosmolot casino, the casino itself launched an active PR campaign, the main messages of which were Ukrainian patriotism, assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the British investor. There were a lot of such publications and they were very useful to the owners of the Cosmolot casino exactly a month later. This coincidence looks very strange and, upon close study of the history of the issue, only confirms what Mykola Tyshchenko voiced: the owners of the Cosmolot casino are Russians. Moreover, these Russians are clearly connected with the Russian intelligence services.

An important thing should be emphasized here: it was not only Tyshchenko who stated that the Cosmolot casino has Russian roots. And he was by no means the discoverer of this information. Even at the time of the opening of the gaming market in Ukraine, studies were published that stated that the idea of legalizing gambling in our country was being lobbied by Russians. Or rather, representatives of Russian organized crime and Russian intelligence services, who are so intertwined that it is no longer possible to understand where the former is and where the latter are.

Thus, investigators said that Serhiy Tokaryev is behind the Cosmolot casino. As can be seen from the register data, he is not on the list of beneficiaries. At the time of receiving the license, only Serhiy Potapov was listed there, whose personality strongly resembles that of an ordinary “pound”. He is listed as the leader and owner of a number of companies with a huge range of space and areas of activity.

And the identity of the head of SpaceX LLC at that time - Oksana Iliichova - also raises many questions.

They are connected with Potapov by occupied Mariupol, where both are private entrepreneurs and do business. And Spacex LLC itself was founded as a company engaged first in trade, then in the field of law, and only just before receiving a license from KRAIL, it changed its type of activity to organizing gambling. And at the same time, it sharply increased the authorized capital to 30 million hryvnia.

One gets the strong impression that the real beneficiaries of the Cosmolot casino simply bought the first company they came across and quickly adjusted it to the required parameters. In addition, citizen Serhiy Potapov clearly did not have money for the authorized capital and license. Let us remind you that the first amounted to 30,000,000 hryvnia at the time of obtaining the license, and the second costs 39 million. The question of where citizen Potapov got the money for this pleasure has never been investigated. So the version that someone else is behind Serhiy Potapov seems very likely. And not only through finance.

And this is where the personalities of Serhiy Tokarev and Ihor Mazepa emerge, who are called the real beneficiaries of Spacex LLC, operating in Ukraine under the Cosmolot brand. Serhiy Tokaryev – citizen of the Russian Federation:

In addition, included in the sanctions list in 2018 for “financing pro-Russian terrorists” in the sub-republics of Donbas:

True, with the change of power in Ukraine, he was quickly excluded from the list of sanctions and was involved in the development of “The State in a Smartphone.” The main lobbyist for such an amazing performance is called the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov. Under his patronage, Tokaryev was suddenly excluded from the sanctions lists and began to lead an active social and political life, showing off his sudden love for Ukraine.

The fact that until recently he openly violated its laws by flying to occupied Crimea and sponsoring terrorists was forgotten.

Moreover, Serhiy Tokaryev began to conduct business in Ukraine, and Russian citizenship did not interfere with this.

Returning to the Cosmolot casino: Tokaryev had to apply for a fake identity. His citizenship and very bad background were obviously in the way - in Russia, Serhiy Tokaryev is associated with the notorious Volcano casinos, which are backed by one of the ideologues of the ’Russian world’, Kostyantyn Malofeyev. Kostyantyn Malofeyev, in turn, is closely linked to the FSB, which facilitates his illegal business - gambling is banned in Russia, but no one touches Malofeyev’s casinos. This business has allowed Tokarev to acquire a good collection of property in Russia: at least three apartments, Range Rover (A976VR777), Mazda Touri (C082AH177) and Mazda 3 (M791TT177). The pearl of the collection is an Audi RS6 Avant Performance with 605 horsepower and government licence plates (A028MO99). These licence plates are issued exclusively to employees of the Moscow City Hall, and not to ordinary people.

And here the question arises - who let this character get access to people who develop digital products that contain complete information on almost all citizens of Ukraine? Of course, Sergei Tokarev was driven by Mykhailo Fedorov, but who slipped such a character to Fedorov, who was only a Kvartal 95 SMM before becoming minister?

There are many versions, but the most likely explanation seems to be the involvement of Russian organised crime in promoting the idea of legalising the gambling market. In particular, we are talking about the Alfa Group, whose most prominent representatives are Herman Khan, Mykhailo Fridman and Oleksiy Kuzmichov. All of them are closely connected to Russia’s top leadership and at the same time have huge assets in Ukraine. And it was in this group that another person mentioned by Mykola Tyshchenko worked, Ihor Mazepa, who in 2013 was a member of the Supervisory Board of Alfa-Bank. Until 2017, Ihor Mazepa was a co-owner of Private FX, a company that has been linked to Dmitriy Medvedev - Private FX’s other co-owner was Oleksiy Kuzmichov, who was considered an authorised person under the then Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev.

And here we should mention another character - Borys Baum, who at the time of the development of legislation on the legalisation of gambling in Ukraine was the deputy head of the Advisory and Expert Council of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries. It is Borys Baum who is considered the ideologist of gambling legalisation by the British publication Talk Finance in its investigation Boris Baum: "The proxy of the Luzhniki Organised Crime Group in Ukraine, and his ties to the mafia are so powerful that they have become a business card".

It is worth adding that the Luzhnikovska OCG, like Kostyantyn Malofeyev, is also closely linked to the Russian special services. The story of Borys Baum is a separate fascinating chapter, but in this case it is interesting to us because the British claimed that the legalisation of the gambling market in Ukraine was initiated by Russian organised crime and the Russian special services that would control it.

Cosmolot’s licence and the strange transformations with the holder of this licence, SpaceX LLC, are proof of this. As for another alleged beneficiary of SpaceX LLC, the British Arnulf Damerau, he is the same "pound" as Potapov. Only more expensive because he has a longer biography. And he had to be bought urgently in anticipation of the upcoming raid on the Cosmolot casino by competitors who were well aware of its secrets and knew who its real owner was.

The purchase of the British owner and the aggressive PR campaign about Cosmolot’s allegedly "patriotic stance" eventually paid off: as of today, Cosmolot has not been deprived of its licence and has received only a fine of three and a half million hryvnias from KRAIL:

The fine has not been paid, is being actively challenged in the courts, and is likely to be upheld. But no matter how this trial ends, the fact remains that the Cosmolot casino, owned by representatives of the Russian Alfa Group, who are linked to the Russian government, the Russian secret services and organised crime, continues to operate in Ukraine. Moreover, it organises attacks on media outlets that publish investigations into the Russian roots of the Cosmolot casino.