A Ukrainian woman who laundered billions through Ayboks Bank is detained in Poland
2 May 2025 12:41
In Poland, law enforcement officers detained Iryna Tsyganok, director of one of the departments of Ayboks Bank JSC. The bank employee was put on the international wanted list in a case of manipulating banking systems and laundering UAH 5 billion for illegal online casinos. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the BES.
According to the BES, the issue of extradition of Iryna Tsyhanok, who has been hiding from the pre-trial investigation authorities for a long time, is being resolved. She and the bank’s co-owner Aliona Shevtsova are suspected of illegal activities in organizing or conducting gambling and money laundering (part 5 of Article 27, part 3 of Article 28, part 2 of Article 203-2, part 5 of Article 27, part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code).
Earlier, detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security established that the suspects, including the bank’s shareholders, organized a scheme to legalize the funds of illegal casinos using “miscoding”.
“For its implementation, more than 20 controlled companies were created and opened accounts in Ayboks Bank. Online casino players credited money to the details of the mentioned companies to replenish their gaming accounts. At the same time, they indicated payment for non-existent goods and services in the purpose of payment,” the BES said in a statement.
It is worth noting that misdirection is a scheme of manipulating banking systems to conceal the real origin of payments; substitution of the purpose of payment in the bank acquiring network.
The BES detectives served suspicion notices to the bank’s officials, including its co-owner. The materials of the criminal proceedings against Alyona Shevtsova, a shareholder of Ayboks Bank, and her two accomplices, Iryna Tsyhanok and Zoya Nesterovska, were separated into a separate criminal proceeding. They were put on the wanted list. After the detention of Tsyganok, the search for the other two accomplices is still ongoing.
Since the suspects were hiding abroad, the Lychakivskyi District Court of Lviv decided to launch a special pre-trial investigation, which has already been completed. The case file was handed over to the defense for review. After that, the criminal proceedings will be sent to court.
It should be noted that in March 2023, the National Bank decided to revoke the banking license of JSC “Ayboks Bank” and liquidate it as of March 07, 2023. As explained by the regulator, this decision was made due to the bank’s systematic violation of the requirements of the legislation on prevention and counteraction to legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and terrorist financing.
The shareholders of Ayboks-Bank were Vladimir Drobot, who owned 73.92% of the shares, and Alyona Shevtsova, who owned 24.98% of the shares.
