Searches were conducted in Russia at Mostbet's payment partners on suspicion of money laundering
Officers from the Russian Investigative Committee conducted searches at the offices of the payment services Payment.Center, Gate Express, and Payselection, which serve offshore bookmakers. Despite having significant “protection” within law enforcement agencies, these businesses came under scrutiny due to a “Ukrainian connection.”
According to iGaming, the investigative actions took place as part of the investigation into the Mostbet platform, whose owner, Sergey Lagutenko, was detained in mid-March 2026. According to preliminary information, the raids were based on testimony obtained during interrogations of the company’s management and approximately 40 other individuals involved in the case.
The heads of the payment systems are suspected of money laundering on a particularly large scale and financing terrorism through alleged ties to Ukrainian entities. According to the investigation materials, the beneficiary of Mostbet may be former Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.
According to media reports, the PaySelection and Gate Express services are managed by Arsen Akopian and specialize in processing payments for illegal online casinos through Russian banks, specifically Gazprombank. With a staff of five, PaySelection LLC’s net revenue in 2023 exceeded 70 million rubles, which has also become the subject of investigation by law enforcement agencies.
Earlier, detectives from the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine and cyber experts from the SBU uncovered a shadow money transfer scheme using the Russian payment systems YooMoney and WebMoney, which are banned in Ukraine. During searches, 60 million hryvnias were seized.
The SBU and the Economic Security Bureau also dismantled a network of underground online services operating through the banned Russian payment system Webmoney. Some of the transfers made through this platform were intended to finance Russian agents.
