Sanctioned casino Pin-Up seeks to remove information about its Ukrainian connections

Sanctioned online casino Pin-Up is seeking to remove online reports about its connections in Ukraine. Citing copyright, the casino has demanded the removal of articles describing links between Dmytro Punin and three Ukrainian nationals: Ihor Fisun, Maksym Sihalov and Kamil Prymakov.

Pin-Up

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) opened a criminal investigation into Pin-Up’s Ukrainian operations in April 2024. Investigators said they had established links between the casino and Russian representatives and sanctioned individuals, as well as financial flows benefiting the Russian state budget. The investigation led to the seizure of company accounts and assets, along with property linked to the casino’s owners, including the Monaco and Kupetskyi Dvir restaurants and the Podil Plaza hotel in Kyiv.

In May 2025, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council imposed sanctions on Dmytro Punin, Cyprus-based Guruflow Team Ltd and Pin-Up’s Ukrainian operator, Ukr Game Technology LLC. The operator’s gambling licence was revoked.

In July, a court convicted Ukr Game Technology director Ihor Zotko of economic cooperation with the aggressor state, participation in a criminal organisation, tax evasion, money laundering and forgery by an official. More than UAH 2.6 billion in Pin-Up funds was confiscated by the state, along with more than UAH 200 million in income generated while the seized funds were under state management.

Fisun: the payments business and two routes to Pin-Up

Ihor Fisun is a banker with interests in the payments business. At least two personnel links connect him to Pin-Up’s Ukrainian operation.

Yaroslav Fomytskyi headed Finexpress, a financial company linked to Fisun, before becoming the first head of Pin-Up’s Ukrainian operator, Ukr Game Technology.

Before joining Pin-Up, Ihor Zotko ran UkrCard, another company linked to Fisun. He later became the owner of the casino’s Ukrainian operator. Zotko was subsequently convicted of collaboration with Russia.

Sihalov, Diamond Pay and the billions flowing through Ukraine’s gambling industry

Maksym Sihalov is a former member of a district council in Dnipropetrovsk. His name has been linked to the payment companies Diamond Pay and E-Pay. Both feature in criminal proceedings examining the payment infrastructure of Ukraine’s gambling industry.

Court records provide a sense of the scale involved. In a January 28, 2026 ruling by Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court, a prosecutor cited findings by Ukraine’s Economic Security Bureau (ESBU) concerning E-Pay. According to the bureau, the company may have understated its income by UAH 21.8 billion in 2021-22. The estimated loss to the state budget from unpaid corporate income tax was UAH 3.9 billion.

A separate court document cites the findings of an inspection of E-Pay by the National Bank of Ukraine, the country’s central bank and financial regulator. The NBU identified a high risk of “miscoding” — processing payments under a merchant category code that does not correspond to the true nature of the transaction. Transactions processed by the company under MCC 7994, “video games”, alone totalled almost UAH 1.2 billion.

Investigators allege that Diamond Pay processed payments from online casino customers and payouts to their bank cards.

Over just six days, from April 19 to 24, 2024, more than UAH 1.1 billion was credited to new accounts belonging to VBET Ukraine and Ukr Game Technology, Pin-Up’s Ukrainian operator. According to the prosecutor, about UAH 1.09 billion of that amount was then transferred to Diamond Pay for subsequent payouts to players.

Diamond Pay and Ukraine’s gambling regulator

Diamond Pay also made payments to Yevhen Yakhnii before he became a member of Ukraine’s state gambling regulator, known as KRAIL.

According to an investigation by journalist Yevhen Plinskyi, Yakhnii received UAH 4.4 million from Diamond Pay in 2023 through his sole-proprietor business. After he was appointed to the regulator, published records indicate that payments from the company began going to his wife. In total, the Yakhnii family received UAH 8.84 million from Diamond Pay in 2023-24.

Yakhnii later became a defendant in a case linked to Pin-Up. On September 16, 2025, Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court approved a plea agreement between Yakhnii and prosecutors. The former gambling regulator member was sentenced to five years in prison, with the sentence suspended and a two-year probation period imposed. He had spent about eight months in pre-trial detention before the verdict.

Meeting Punin in France

The third person named in the articles Pin-Up is seeking to remove is Kamil Prymakov, a member of Dnipro City Council.

On September 9, media outlets published footage recorded at La Guérite, a restaurant on the French Riviera. The video shows Maksym Sihalov and Kamil Prymakov alongside Dmytro Punin. The exact date on which it was filmed is unknown.

The reports alleged that the meeting may have concerned the gambling business and payment arrangements. The footage itself does not establish what was discussed. It shows only that Sihalov, Prymakov and Punin were together at La Guérite, an exclusive restaurant on Sainte-Marguerite island off Cannes that can only be reached by boat.

Articles disappear

Pin-Up is now seeking the removal of publications concerning all three men — Fisun, Sihalov and Prymakov. And some have already disappeared: several of the articles published on September 9 are no longer available.

For now, however, the sanctioned casino’s attempt to remove reporting about its Ukrainian connections has had the opposite effect. The previously separate stories of Fisun, Sihalov and Prymakov now form a single chain.