"Shadow" schemes, tax evasion, and offshore trails of Cosmobet and “NeuroLink”: how Tokarev, with the help of Dobrovolsky and Zborovsky, regained control of Ukrainian gambling

The Ukrainian online casino sector has become a magnet for gray capital, where licensed brands and flashy marketing often conceal elaborate networks tied to Russian businesses, offshore firms, and local partners.

One such example is the brand Cosmobet, the formal owner of which is LLC "Neurolink." Its official registration and Cypriot "foreign" on the signboard only mask a network leading to figures much less public and far more influential.

Formal owners

If you look into the data of Opendatabot, LLC "Neurolink" is a completely "white" company. It is registered in Ukraine, with an official director and a nominal owner, Cypriot citizen Andrey Dobrovolskiy. The company does not appear in major legal scandals or investigations by anti-corruption bodies, and its beneficiaries, at first glance, do not raise suspicions. But that is just the facade.

Behind "Neurolink" stands another firm — LLC "Neoplay". On paper, it’s a regular legal entity with no active operations. In practice, it’s a typical "shell" through which chains of nominal owners are constructed. Its charter capital is minimal; its turnover is not entirely zero, but for a company owning, albeit through a shell, one of the largest casinos, it’s laughable. However, it’s laughable only to those not in the loop — in reality, it’s a typical scheme for tax evasion and profit extraction to offshore accounts.

The managers and founders are little-known individuals who appear in several similar companies scattered across the country. In the ownership structure of Cosmobet, this is the first signal: this is not an independent business but a carefully constructed scheme.

The main public figure of this structure is Andrey Dobrovolskiy, a Cypriot citizen. Formally, he is listed as the ultimate beneficiary of LLC "Neurolink."

But if you trace him through Opendatabot, a quite revealing picture emerges. Dobrovolskiy is associated with a series of companies registered in Ukraine and Cyprus, most of which have the same characteristics: minimal capital, lack of public activity, and similar directors. Some of these entities, like "Neoplay," are involved in gambling or IT services for casinos. But the range of business activities of all the firms linked to Cypriot Andrey Dobrovolskiy spans from tea and coal trading to construction and agricultural production.

However, here it’s simple – Andrey Dobrovolskiy is as much a front as Mikhail Zborovskiyi, whom he replaced as the "beneficiary" of the Cosmobet casino. This is explained very simply: the use of Cypriot nominees is one of the typical schemes for legalizing Russian money.

Cyprus remains a convenient jurisdiction for registering "clean" companies, and the European citizenship of their owners allows international payments to be carried out without unnecessary questions. Dobrovolskiy is just such a technical beneficiary. He is needed so that Ukrainian casinos look like international investment projects, not as a front for Russian capital.

The real owner

In the gambling market’s backstage, the name of the true beneficiary of Cosmobet has long been no secret. It’s about Russian Sergey Tokarev – a person with extensive experience in illegal gambling business, who has actively exploited the Ukrainian field since the early 2010s. In 2018, he already appeared on the sanctions lists for financing "people’s republics" in Donbas, but in 2020, he received an early "amnesty" from the new government and returned to business undercover.

Persistent rumors claim that this "amnesty" was organized for Tokarev by his close friend – Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Mikhail Fedorov. For what merits is unknown, but the sanctions were lifted prematurely, allowing Tokarev to promptly open the Cosmolot casino in Ukraine.

According to market sources, it is Tokarev who controls Cosmobet, oversees financial flows, and appoints "nominees" to key legal entities. He personally does not appear in any Ukrainian registry, does not officially own or direct anything. But his traces show up in IP address matches, in recurring company patterns, and in people who go through various casino projects that are formally unrelated.

Новости по теме: Убийство на Кипре раскрыло теневую империю: какие последствия могут ожидать владельца онлайн-казино Pin-Up Дмитрия Пунина

Court cases and initial breaches in the financial construct

Despite external legality, the structure of Cosmobet has begun to falter. There are already at least three criminal cases related to LLC "Neurolink" in open court registries: №991/8184/25, №761/14261/25, and №761/14259/25.

All three processes concern financial operations and tax claims. Specifically, in case №991/8184/25, there are mentions of massive contracts with individual entrepreneurs to whom "Neurolink" paid millions of hryvnias for marketing and advertising services. In practice, these individual entrepreneurs were used for cashing out funds received from players.

The scheme is simple: the casino accepts deposits, transfers money for "marketing" to affiliated individuals, who then withdraw cash and return it through intermediaries. Formally everything is clean – taxes paid, contracts in place. But in essence, this is classic gray cash disguised as advertising expenses.

Other court cases involve cross-border transfers to Cypriot and Latvian companies, framed as payment for "hosting" and "software development." Here Dobrovolskiy comes into play again: as an EU citizen, he legitimizes the money outflow schemes abroad. Through offshores, money ultimately settles in accounts of companies associated with Tokarev’s entourage.

The entire Cosmobet scheme operates on a four-stage principle: Player deposits → Individual entrepreneurs and fictitious marketing contracts → Pseudo-outsourcing to Cypriot and Latvian legal entities → Offshore accounts controlled by Tokarev’s entourage.

For Ukrainian regulatory bodies, only the first and second levels are visible. This is why tax authorities and courts act locally without affecting the main beneficiaries. Without international cooperation, establishing the connection between Tokarev and Ukrainian companies is practically impossible.

The Ukrainian gambling market – a quiet haven for Russians

The story of Cosmobet is not an exception but rather a symptom of a deep-seated ailment. Since the legalization of the gambling market in 2020, the Ukrainian online casino market has become an arena for hundreds of such schemes. Russian capital hasn’t disappeared – it merely changed its masks. Instead of direct owners, there are Cypriot nominees. Instead of offshore intermediaries from Belize, there are Latvian or Maltese companies. Instead of "underground" operations, there are official licenses and flashy ad campaigns.

Cosmobet stands out only in scale. It is one of the largest operators on the market, continuing to operate despite apparent signs of schematism and the presence of Russian capital in the structure.

Behind LLC "Neurolink" and Cypriot citizen Dobrovolskiy lies a much more powerful figure – Russian Tokarev. He doesn’t appear in registries, isn’t involved in court cases, and doesn’t show up in the public arena. But he is the one who controls Cosmobet’s real cash flow and formulates its strategy.

Formal legal entities "Neurolink" and "Neoplay" are screens. Dobrovolskiy is an instrument for extracting funds abroad. The numerous Ukrainian individual entrepreneurs are cogs in a well-established scheme for cash conversion.

Новости по теме: Фонд ОМС расширяет свой штат и тратит миллионы на сотрудников, которые на самом деле не существуют

If the Ukrainian authorities truly want to cleanse the gambling market of Russian influence, they must start not with small individual entrepreneurs and administrative lawsuits, but by closely examining the chain leading from Cosmobet to Tokarev and his Cypriot-Latvian infrastructure.