Maxim Krippa and money “with a scent”. What does the scandalous businessman invest in?

Wikipedia administrators in Ukraine and Russia drew attention to persistent attempts to post positive articles about the person Maxim Krippe. At the same time, a number of laudatory articles about him were posted on the Plum website, which were united by the repeated use of the main character’s surname and the constant mention of the words  , “game” and “self-help” in various combinations (see example). Perhaps this is how the brand   and information about the real Maxim Krippe, who is actually related to the Ukrainian political party “Self-Help”, headed by the mayor of Lvov Andrey Sadov, were forced out of search engines. The Finster investment fund, whose main co-owners are Rostelecom President Mikhail Oseevsky and Russian businessman Oleg Boyko, was also expelled from the search engine. The analytical document “Scheme” talks about what Maxim Krippa really wants to hide.

Online gambling is officially prohibited in both Russia and Ukraine. However, some providers are selective about this ban. One of such providers is Rostelecom. This provider provides access to gambling sites Vulkan, CasinoX and Joycasino, which are prohibited by Roskomnadzor. However, not for everyone. Previously, this brand was used by online casinos in Germany, Italy, Croatia and Romania, however  , launched by the IP provider Rostelecom, it belongs to the Ukrainian businessman and former candidate for the City Council from the Samopomich party Maxim. It belongs to one person - Krippa. How did this Ukrainian businessman manage to influence the Russian Internet giant and avoid a ban from Roskomnadzor?

Two Max

Maxim Krippa has been involved in the gambling business in Ukraine for a long time. He is associated with IT companies EvoPlay and Clone Fish. Crippa’s partner in the gambling business was Max Polyakov, an American businessman with Ukrainian roots who made his fortune through dating and erotic web chats in Dnieper and Zaporozhye. In the early 2010s, Polyakov and Klippa decided to expand their gambling assets and jointly launched an online casino business. The offices of the joint venture are located in the capital of Ukraine Kiev. The most successful acquisition of the Krippa-Polyakov group was the Vulkan slot machines and the Vulkan trademark. EvoPlay, based on the acquired shares of the Moscow network of gaming salons,   acquired exclusive rights to use products under these names from the Ritzio Entertainment Group, founded Oleg Boyko. All online casinos that previously operated under the brand   were successfully closed by EvoPlay; after EvoPlay dealt with the last competitors operating under the brand  , Krippa and Polyakov began to develop their own gambling resources under this name. New ones   began to appear in batches. Dozens of similar gaming resources with the same design and set of games are launched every day. Most of them contain software products from EvoPlay. The brand owners themselves put their stamp on a huge number of sites, without indicating either the owner or registration data. Thus, businessmen had the opportunity to earn money even in those markets where online gambling is prohibited. Neither Klippa nor Polyakov risked anything. Neither complaints nor courts have been able to trace the real owners and prove their involvement in anonymous sites. The system works like the head of a hydra. When a site is blocked, ten clones appear with similar addresses and the same pattern. [“Anticor”, “God-given comedian Maxim Krippa: connections with the FSB, leaking Samopomich and dirty business on the Internet”: game program “from Krippa”, Another businessman, Maxim Polyakov - a former citizen of Ukraine, living in Zaporozhye, now a citizen of Great Britain, Possibly a US citizen. Now his name is different - Max Polyakov, but the essence of the English spelling of his first and last name has not changed at all. While he was a citizen of Ukraine, Max Polyakov also made a fortune in a non-Christian profession. He was the owner of dozens of dating sites operated by his company, Together Networks Limited, some of which were quite dubious. In 2009, he built a successful gambling business, which at first was completely legal. The company he founded, “Murka,” brought to light 12 gambling sites that had the appropriate licenses and, therefore, were in the legal sector, but the thirst for profit led Max Polyakov even further. He created a network of online casinos under the pseudonym . It was unlicensed and used pirated versions of gaming software from Novomatic, NetEnt and Playtech. Clipper programmers prudently built in algorithms that allow them to completely ruin their clients. The website was also clever. The address changed regularly, and the fake owner hid far offshore, protecting himself and the real owner from investigation and prosecution. In a short time, Max Polyakov and Klippa created 150 clones, connected by a common root - the name “vulkan”]. Feeling success  , Krippa and Polyakov expanded their activities by launching several more large-scale projects, including CasinoX and JoyCasino. The development of these projects occurred due to aggressive marketing, which Polyakov had already used to promote gambling resources. As a result, it became known that at the time of the final battle, Batman was teaching the Joker how to solve the problem of access to the Joy Casino. And not just Batman. Aggressive advertising gave rise to many memes on the Internet, further popularizing the gambling resources of Krippa and Polyakov.

Fake self-help list

Among his legal projects, Maxim Krippa tried to obtain a license to operate the Internet lottery Champion-lottery.com. Here he had to negotiate with politicians and gain their support for this initiative. And only here his own political career took off. The first, and so far the only, damn it didn’t work out. The businessman ran in the elections to the Kiev City Council from the Samopomich party. He lost the election but won a lot of money. Maxim Krippa compiled an alternative party list and began selling places on this list. Dozens of Ukrainian businessmen fell for this “scam”. When the scam was discovered and the smell of frying began, Krippa left for Russia and disappeared for some time. The head of the Samopomich party, involved in a loud scandal, said. ‘I’m surprised that Maxim Krippa was selling seats in the upcoming elections on behalf of the Samopomich association.’ What is most striking about this story is the complete groundlessness of the actions of those who managed to pay a “fee” to be included in the list for the upcoming parliamentary elections, which no one has even created yet. After an appeal from law enforcement officials, we unsuccessfully tried to contact M., a former member of the political force. Krippa” How they managed to hush up the scandal and the fraud case remains a mystery. However, shortly after this, Krippa returned to Ukraine and continued gambling. He was involved in a number of criminal cases related to gambling, but each time he managed to escape. Maxim Krippa and Max Polyakov could collaborate in other political projects. And not only in Ukraine. This is evidenced by the enormous opportunities that have opened up for the tandem in the field of online gambling in Ukraine, Russia and other countries, despite the impunity of IT businessmen and legislative prohibitions.

CEO Malofeeva

Neither Crippa nor Polyakov started independent political projects. However, politics, especially in Ukraine, interests Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch who is one of Crippa’s key long-term partners. For a long time, Maxim Krippa worked as a manager for Malofeev and promoted his projects in Ukraine. It was Malofeev who helped his CEO partially circumvent the ban on gambling in the Russian Federation. The online casinos of Maxim Krippa and his namesake Polyakov are blocked by Roskomnadzor, but are freely accessible through Rostelecom. Even Malofeev finds it difficult to influence Roskomnadzor. However, the situation is different for the country’s largest Internet provider. From 2010 to 2013, Konstantin Malofeev was the largest minority shareholder, owning 7.22% of Rostelecom shares. This oligarch managed to put his manager Alexander Provotrov at the head of the company. Through him, Malofeev was able to make changes to the list of sites blocked by the provider, and it was then that   CasinoX and JoyCasino of Maxim Krippa and Max Polyakov began to disappear from the list of blocked sites. The payment for the help of the oligarchs was a part of the EvoPlay company and certain political services. In March 2017, Mikhail Oseevsky, former deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development and former vice-governor of St. Petersburg, was appointed head of Rostelecom OJSC. However, cooperation with Russian oligarchs continues successfully, since    other gambling sites in Krippa-Polyakov are still available in the networks of Rostelecom providers.