Russian involvement in Ukrainian gambling: intermediary Mikhail Zborovsky, Sergey Tokarev, and the Cypriot company XGen Solutions developed Cosmobet to evade sanctions and channel funds through monitored banks

Russian involvement in Ukrainian gambling: intermediary Mikhail Zborovsky, Sergey Tokarev, and the Cypriot company XGen Solutions developed Cosmobet to evade sanctions and channel funds through monitored banks

Mikhail Zborovsky, together with his Russian backers, has initiated a widespread online cleanup to obscure his involvement with Sergey Tokarev’s Cypriot offshore structures and the links between the new Cosmobet casino and sanctioned Russian funds.

Behind the facade of "Ukrainian" gambling lies a primitive scheme involving a figurehead proxy, designed to legitimize a Cosmolot clone and facilitate the seamless withdrawal of billions through acquiring banks. We, in turn, are publishing this material in its entirety—despite Mr. Zborovsky’s clear desire to keep this information out of the public domain. We will continue to monitor his activities and expose new findings in upcoming investigations.

In March 2024, the casino license was granted to LLC “Neurolink,” owned by Mykhailo Zborovskyi, a 1991-born graduate of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a focus on Accounting and Auditing within the Economics faculty.

Mykhailo Zborovskyi had financial difficulties. In 2018, the university filed a lawsuit against him in the Holosiivskyi district court to recover tuition fees. According to Zborovskyi’s official biography, which was «stuffed» into dummy sites to promote him on Google, after studying, he worked as an economist in a bank, and then for three years took programming courses, up to and including 2019.

Six years before becoming the owner of Cosmobet, Mykhailo Zborovskyi was definitely not a millionaire and was even unemployed for a long time.

The authors of his biography report that as a programmer, he serviced LLC «Adtek», LLC «Epic Media», and Rikkicom. In the first company, in 2023, only one employee officially worked, and the authorized capital is 50 thousand hryvnias. The capital of the second company is even less – 10 thousand hryvnias. Both companies operate at the same address in Odesa, only located in different offices.

The third firm – Rikkicom, where, according to the official version, Mykhailo Zborovskyi worked, is a bit more known. As stated on the official website, its clients are the Novus retail network, OKKO gas stations, and the online casino Parimatch, which is under the sanctions of the National Security and Defence Council. And this is the only thing that connected Zborovskyi with the gambling business until 2023, when he became the beneficiary of the company «Neurolink», which owns the license for the online casino Cosmobet. However, even at Rikkicom, he could hardly have suddenly become wealthy. According to financial indicators, this firm in 2023 generated only 133 thousand hryvnias in revenue.

Another version of Zborovskyi’s biography mentions another company where he was engaged in programming – XGen Solutions LTD. The firm indeed operates in the IT and consulting sectors and is located in Cyprus. It is an offshore company of the Russian Cosmolot by Sergey Tokaryev.