- Статьи
- Society
- On special accounts: Ukrainians withdraw billions from Russia through illegal services
On special accounts: Ukrainians withdraw billions from Russia through illegal services
Piastrix, one of the largest payment services serving the interests of illegal online casinos and not licensed to carry out financial activities in Russia, belongs to Ukrainian citizens and can annually withdraw tens of billions of rubles from the country, Izvestia has established. This service uses drops for payments abroad by SBP, accepts payments in cryptocurrencies and currencies of other countries, its activities are not regulated by the Bank of Russia, but despite this, it openly operates in the Russian segment of the Internet, where its website is not even blocked. The names and details are in our investigation.
Piastres for one-armed bandits
Piastrix, one of the largest illegal payment platforms, which services the financial flows of offshore online casinos and participates in money withdrawal schemes from Russia, belongs to citizens of Ukraine. Konstantin Buryachenko, who is registered in Kiev, is the CEO of a whole network of services led by Piastrix, and related services are registered with other persons with Ukrainian citizenship.
Piastrix is one of the main services through which money is withdrawn from Russia to illegal online casinos. Among them are 1xBet, 1WIN, Vulkan, Pin-Up and dozens of smaller ones.
As previously reported by Izvestia, the turnover of offshore casinos and bookmakers in Russia, according to various estimates, reaches 4 trillion rubles per year. A significant part of these funds can be distributed through Piastrix. In this case, taking into account the fact that the platform charges a 5-10% commission for the deposit, its income from payments from Russia alone can amount to tens, if not hundreds of billions of rubles annually.
According to Izvestia's sources, Konstantin Buryachenko is the director and manager of a number of illegal payment platforms. It is known from open sources about him that he hails from Donetsk, was the head of online payment services companies in Poland (Online Service Solution S.A. and Beltime Solution s.p. z o.o.), England (Software Online Solutions LLP), the Czech Republic (Kvb Solutions s.r.o) and in Ukraine (TOV "Unique Payment Solutions"). Buryachenko has a valid registration in Kiev. In the open register of heads of British companies, in relation to Software Online Solutions LLP, its Kiev address is indicated: 9 Knyazhiy Zaton Street, apartment 207.
Other officials representing the above-mentioned companies mainly include citizens of Ukraine, which is also recorded in the British registers.
You can find a lot of negative user reviews about Piastrix online. Customers complain about the lack of funds transfers or theft, and the support service does everything to delay the proceedings and force the user to give up on the loss of funds.
The Ukrainian cartel
Izvestia checked the Piastrix website using web analytics services, and it turned out that it was registered in 2018 to the FinGate company, also associated with Buryachenko (he headed it and liquidated it). This is a Georgian company, which in the past was one of the legal entities representing another illegal payment service Payeer along with the Russian LLC Payeer Rus and the Danish Worldwide System K/S.
In the 12 years of its existence, Payeer has changed many directors and jurisdictions, at the moment it is the Paraguayan Payeer E.A.S. The company had to "move" from Estonia and Lithuania due to problems with regulators - in Estonia, its license to work with cryptocurrencies was revoked, and in Lithuania it was fined almost €10 million for laundering money. The company also came under the 19th package of EU sanctions in October 2025. Payeer has announced that it will stop working (the site is still functioning, but it does not allow you to register a new wallet, just log in to an existing one).
In 2024, the FinTelegram research company specializing in financial intelligence and anti-money laundering, citing data from the Lithuanian State Securities Commission, published a list of individuals and legal entities affiliated with Payeer. Among them was not only Buryachenko, but also other beneficiaries, who, as Izvestia established, are also largely citizens of Ukraine.
However, the list of Ukrainian citizens involved in the work of this international illegal financial holding company is not limited to this. According to Buryachenko's now inactive phone number, Izvestia managed to find the mailbox of the support of the Ukrainian bank iBox of IT entrepreneur Alyona Degrik-Shevtsova and Vladimir Drobot. This bank in Ukraine was accused of laundering money through casinos in the amount of at least $150 million. iBox Bank in Ukraine has had its license revoked for "miscoding" — the substitution of seller's payment codes, in which money is spent on the wrong type of product/service for which it was claimed.
Izvestia's sources associate Buryachenko with the Ukrainian Interkassa payment service. It, in turn, belongs to Ukrainian entrepreneur Igor Fisun, the main owner of Oxybank and Ukrkarta, which is the main payment service serving the Ukrainian state portal Dia (an analogue of Russian Public Services). Disgraced Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexander Dubinsky has repeatedly written on his Telegram channel that casinos are used in Ukraine as a way to illegally withdraw funds.
In particular, he accused Maxim Krippa, the owner of Vulkan casino, of working in the interests of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and acting as his wallet, using connections in offshore zones, including Cyprus with businessman Stavros Demosthenes. Demosthenes was killed on October 17, 2025 in Limassol. The Cypriot police are checking the version about the connection of the crime with the conflict against the background of match-fixing, which Demosthenes was suspected of organizing.
There are also influential Russian owners in this large Ukrainian team: according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Payeer Rus LLC was registered to Evgenia Kosolapova, and Pavel Kulbikov, who, according to Izvestia sources, is her husband, was the actual owner of Payeer.
Another leader mentioned earlier in the FinTelegram study, Artyom Burdasov, is closely associated with them. He, together with Pavel Kulbikov, was the founder of the Russian Twik LLC (liquidated on May 22, 2022).
At the same time, clients who used Payeer actually transferred money to the personal account of Kosolapova herself, as recorded in the posts of the MMGP profile forum.
The receipt of large funds to her personal account probably allowed Kosolapova to buy a Ferrari sports car, the photo of which was on display on Burdasov's VKontakte page.
How the service works in Russia
Piastrix is a multi-currency (national currencies of eight countries are supported) online wallet with a variety of ways to deposit and withdraw funds. Bypassing 115-FZ "On Countering the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime and the Financing of Terrorism" in Russia, small deposits are made through depositing funds into the accounts of mobile numbers of drops (front persons). This allows you to bypass the Central Bank's blockages, since the regulator does not monitor such operations.
For larger amounts, classic P2P (direct transfers between individuals) deposits via SBP drops are used, but there is a limit on transactions for new accounts — no more than 30 thousand rubles. Piastrix also allows you to exchange and buy popular cryptocurrency tokens (BitCoin, Tether, Etherium), which probably gives the company additional income. At the same time, Piastrix does not have licenses (publicly announced) for conducting cryptocurrency transactions, even in countries where it is legal. The platform also acts as a platform for paying for subscription services blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation — Netflix, Playstation Plus, Apple Store.
Izvestia sent inquiries to Roskomnadzor and the Bank of Russia about the reasons for the lack of blocking of the Piastrix service in Russia. Roskomnadzor forwarded this issue to other agencies, in particular to the Central Bank. There was no response from the Central Bank at the time of publication of the material.
According to economist Andrey Barkhota, the Central Bank is strong only where it has a licensing tool, and gray payment platforms often operate out of its line of sight.
— Payment platforms serving semi—legal flows are often not licensed at all or move to other jurisdictions - this is outside the perimeter of the Central Bank and classic regulatory arbitration. The Central Bank is apparently waiting for these flows to formalize into NGOs in order to "slam the fly swatter," but this will not happen. The situation is akin to cash payments for sex services ‑ it is practically unregulated," says Barkhota.
The expert added that a hard sweep of the gray sector will only push the money deeper underground, which is worse for the regulator.
— They turn a blind eye to the gray market, because its harsh cleansing will drive money into cash and cryptocurrencies — this is the worst scenario for the Central Bank. Now everything is on "thin ice": the shadow sector acts as a shock absorber for the economy. If you try to clear the Augean stables to the "walls", you can bring down the entire "temple". There is a dispute between two schools of thought — one for regulation and control, the other for a softer approach, which says that in a difficult period it is better not to stifle regulation too much," the economist noted.
Indeed, entrepreneurs in Russia can look at Piastrix as a way to circumvent the sanctions imposed by Visa and Mastercard.
Izvestia's interlocutors confirmed that, having an illegal side of its activities, Piastrix is able to provide cross-border transfers bypassing sanctions, which may be the reason why regulatory authorities turn a blind eye to its open work in Russia. At the same time, the platform can actively contribute to the outflow of capital from the Russian Federation, as well as conducting shadow transactions to foreign jurisdictions beyond the control of the Central Bank, thereby enriching its beneficiaries.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
