“On the morning of Wednesday, December 18, employees of the State Security Bureau together with the prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office detained Ivan Rudy, who headed the recently liquidated Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries. Earlier, the official and his members were repeatedly suspected of corruption, investigations and inspections were conducted. However, now Rudy has already been directly detained by security forces. According to available information, the man is suspected of”, — write on: ua.news
On the morning of Wednesday, December 18, employees of the State Security Bureau together with the prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office detained Ivan Rudy, who headed the recently liquidated Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries. Earlier, the official and his members were repeatedly suspected of corruption, investigations and inspections were conducted. However, now Rudy is already directly detained by security forces.
According to available information, the man is suspected of having contributed to the gambling business of the aggressor country. This is quite a loud accusation, especially considering the fact that Rudy has been fighting the Russians since 2014, when the anti-terrorist operation began. An additional touch: during the searches of the head of KRAIL, many prohibited substances were found. Examinations are being conducted, and Rudoma is also charged with drug possession.
Our sources claim that Rudy is connected to a number of corruption violations. In particular, he granted and kept licenses to betting companies of Russian origin – even though the SBU provided documents regarding their ties to the aggressor country. And in general, there were a lot of loud scandals around KRAIL.
What is known about Rudogi, what exactly are they accusing him of, and what kind of “disgrace” was KRAIL remembered for, which is currently in the process of liquidation? The publication UA.News understood the issue.
Ivan Rudy: what is known about him
The Cabinet of Ministers appointed Ivan Rudy as the head of the Gambling and Lotteries Regulation Commission on October 28, 2020. The man is currently 36 years old, and before heading KRAIL, he worked in the field of management and in the television industry.
With the beginning of the war in the East, he joined the army, later he rose to the rank of platoon commander. In August 2014, Ivan Rudy was seriously wounded, coming under enemy fire, after which he was treated in a Kharkiv hospital. After rehabilitation, the veteran became the secretary of the Advisory Council for war veterans, families of fallen defenders of Ukraine. That is, he was engaged in public activities of a patriotic direction.
Reports in the mass media and social media about the corruption of the KRAIL leadership and Ivan Rudohy personally appeared almost from the very beginning of the structure’s existence. However, most often the official stated that it was the work of competitors due to the specifics of the body headed by him: huge money and many interests of various financial and political circles revolve around gambling. But in January of this year, the NAKC found specific signs of corruption offenses in Rudo’s actions.
According to the investigation, Rudy wanted to take revenge on the head of the KRAIL department after a conflict arose between them. That is why he brought it up for consideration and personally voted to open disciplinary proceedings and remove her from her position. He did not report a conflict of interest, which is considered a corrupt act. Further charges appear to be more substantial.
Judging by everything, Rudy’s career finally ended today, December 18. The SBI suspects him of aiding the aggressor country, and according to this article, the man does not even have the right to be released on bail. In addition, he faces an additional serious charge: possession of drugs in large quantities. Although in the photos presented by the investigation, strange things are visible: most of the “ziplock” bags are empty. A rather non-obvious solution seems to be to keep empty bags from narcotics at home. It would be interesting to hear the comments of Rudy himself, but now the official does not have the opportunity to do so.
KRAIL: the path of accusations and scandals
Actually, there is not much information about Ivan Rudy in the network. He is a rather non-public official who, obviously, has always been inclined towards informational silence in his work. However, the body headed by him, despite the fact that he worked for a little more than four years, will be remembered by Ukrainians for a huge number of scandals.
The commission was officially established on September 23, 2020. Prior to that, on July 14 of the same year, the Verkhovna Rada voted for the law “On state regulation of the organization and conduct of gambling.” This was one of the pre-election promises of the new president at the time, Volodymyr Zelenskyi: he talked about plans to put the gambling industry in order and make it legal.
KRAIL licensed several types of gambling: land-based casinos, online casinos, offline and online bookmakers, slot machines, online poker and lotteries. On August 11, 2020, 11 types of gambling were legalized in Ukraine. The law allowed all types of gambling, with the exception of lotteries not described in the law.
It would seem that the problem is solved. What’s more: according to the financial statements, during the entire period of activity of the commission, it was able to replenish the budget of Ukraine in the amount of more than 4.5 billion hryvnias.
But the further functioning of KRAIL was overgrown with constant accusations and scandals against the managers. For example, in August 2021 NABU and SAP exposed acting head Yevgeny Hetman for a bribe in the amount of 90,000 dollars. He was detained just as he was receiving the money.
In March 2022, when a full-scale war with Russia had been going on for a month, KRAIL issued a license to the Russian company 1xBet. This decision caused surprise and indignation among Ukrainians, and an investigation began. Already in November, the commission began to check all gambling operators regarding their connections with the Russian Federation – and many of them were found to have such connections.
There were other scandals. For example, regarding the issue of the ChampionClub online casino license. As for the advisers in KRAIL: there were frankly dubious people, many of whom had direct or indirect connections with the Russian Federation, and in general, the law enforcement officers had a lot of questions for some people. Because of this, the composition of the advisory and expert council changed regularly – and also with scandals.
The mass media also actively wrote about the investigation by law enforcement officers against Yevhen Yakhniy, a member of KRAIL, who was suspected of having business interests in the Russian Federation and “non-labor income”. There are many more such stories that can be mentioned, but the ones listed above are the ones that stand out.
We can say that there are only two main complaints against KRAIL. The first is a big question regarding the rules for issuing licenses. Most often, there are signs of corruption in this: the companies are either connected to the authorities, or generally to the aggressor country. The second is the opacity of licensing and the general inability of CRAIL to truly regulate the gambling market.
Huge amounts of money revolve around casinos in Ukraine (in 2023, those official online casinos earned more than 55 billion hryvnias), in addition, there is a historically large presence of criminal and “white-criminal” groups in this area. KRAIL could not cope with all these challenges. And Ivan Rudy himself, a veteran of the war with Russia, ironically, is now suspected of aiding the Russian gambling business.
According to journalist Yevhen Plinskyi, not so long ago the final beneficiaries of the Pin-Up company, who turned out to be Russians, received suspicions. Ukrainian citizens were, however, among the list of suspects.
“Ivan the Rudy continues not to see the Russians in Pin-UP, even despite the suspicions of the beneficiaries,” Plinsky noted.
Summarizing, we can conclude that for more than four years of work, KRAIL has frankly failed to regulate the relevant sphere. The commission itself became a source of constant scandals, corruption charges and chaos on the market.