The Supreme Court of Ukraine has requested from the Office of the Prosecutor General the materials relating to closed criminal case No. 22015000000000379, which concerns the activities of the illegal online casino ‘Vulkan’ and the financing of terrorism. The decision was made during the hearing of a claim by the project’s co-founder, Rustam Gilfanov, who is currently seeking to challenge the sanctions imposed on him by the National Security and Defence Council. The court took this step after the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) failed to provide the documents that had previously been requested.
The story dates back to the early 2010s, when two groups of partners came together around the illegal online casino ‘Vulkan’: Rustam Gilfanov and Sergei Tokarev on the one hand, and Maxim Krippa and Maxim Polyakov on the other. Due to a public conflict between the beneficiaries, the project attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies.
In 2015, the SBU opened criminal proceedings under articles relating to illegal gambling and the financing of terrorism. According to the investigation, part of the profits from the online casino’s operations was transferred to the Russian Federation. This case formed the basis for the National Security and Defence Council’s imposition of personal sanctions in 2017 against Russian citizens Tokarev and Gilfanov.
Despite the seriousness of the initial charges, the case never reached trial on the key charges. During the SBU’s investigation, the allegations concerning the financing of terrorism and the organisation of gambling were effectively dismissed.
Only one minor charge – the unlawful possession of a firearm – was brought to the final stage of the trial. After two years of expert examinations, it emerged that the seized item was a Ukrainian-made production-model revolver chambered for Flobert cartridges, as a result of which the conviction was quashed in its entirety due to the absence of the elements of a criminal offence.
Even after the criminal case was effectively closed, those involved suffered serious reputational and financial losses. Maxim Krippa came to be associated in the market with the ‘Vulcan’ brand for a long time.
Due to reputational problems arising in 2022, Maxim Polyakov was forced to sell his shares in the aerospace company Firefly Aerospace for a pittance. It is noteworthy that by 2025, the company’s market capitalisation had reached $9.8 billion.
A new twist in this high-profile case began against the backdrop of Rustam Gilfanov’s attempts to have the sanctions restrictions lifted through the courts. As the criminal proceedings dating back a decade were the main argument for the imposition of restrictions by the National Security and Defence Council, a panel of judges decided to examine the original sources in detail.
The request for documents via the Office of the Prosecutor General will enable the Supreme Court to make a legal assessment of the actions of the SBU’s investigative bodies, which, within the framework of a single proceeding, reclassified a large-scale case concerning the financing of terrorism as the possession of a civilian revolver.