The story involving Dmytro Druzhynskyi and Maryna Levkovych is more than just another narrative about online casinos, cryptocurrency, and payment services. It increasingly resembles a ready-made crime drama: an international wanted notice, a billion dollars, dozens of searches, a bookmaker’s license allegedly used as a cover, an American passport, Ukrainian roots, Russian connections, and reportedly anxious attempts to cleanse the internet of unwanted information.
Kazakhstani investigators claim: through infrastructure linked to the Pin-Up and Pinco brands, huge sums were being withdrawn from the country under the guise of legal bookmaker activities. At the center of the scheme are US citizen Dmytro Druzhynskyi and Ukrainian citizen Maryna Levkovych (Ginzburg), who were placed on the international wanted list at the beginning of the year.
But the most interesting thing in this story – is not even the amounts of money. It’s how former players from the post-Soviet gambling business, crypto processing, offshore entities, Ukrainian and Russian connections, and the traditional magic for such schemes intertwined around online betting: «we didn’t organize anything, we just provided a service».
At the same time, a significant part of the publications regarding the case comes either from Kazakhstani official statements or from so-called «leak» platforms and investigative sites. Therefore, some of the information requires a cautious approach and has not yet been confirmed by court decisions, and it is quite difficult to piece together a picture that is more or less consistent with reality.
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Why Kazakhstan?
The official part of the story was voiced by the Financial Monitoring Agency of Kazakhstan (AFM). According to the investigation, under the guise of a legal bookmaker business, a network of illegal online casinos linked to the Pin-Up and Pinco brands operated in the country.
The key element of the scheme, as investigators claim, was LLC «Bonami», which obtained an official bookmaker’s license in Kazakhstan. Formally – a legal betting market. In fact, as the AFM believes, – infrastructure for servicing online gambling and withdrawing money out of the country.
The investigation states that clients’ money was first accumulated on transit accounts, then passed through payment companies Gold Pay and Cyber Pay (later renamed Pinnacle Financial Solutions), and then converted into cryptocurrency. According to Kazakhstani law enforcement, over a billion dollars could have been withdrawn through this system. In January 2026, Druzhinsky and Levkovich were placed on the international wanted list, and then the court sanctioned their absentee arrest.
Kazakhstan itself has long become one of the key markets for post-Soviet gambling business. After tightening regulations, Kazakhstan turned out to be a convenient platform: a relatively liberal market, active development of electronic payments, high interest in online betting, and the ability to operate through a network of intermediaries.
According to Kazakhstani media and investigative publications, Druzhynskyi and Levkovych were involved precisely in organizing the payment infrastructure – that is, not so much the casinos themselves, but the most important element of any gambling business: the movement of money. And that’s already the level not of simple «IT guys», but of financial coordinators.
Judging by open publications, Maryna Levkovych also appeared under the surname Ginzburg. Dmytro Druzhynskyi is referred to in a number of publications as a US citizen of Ukrainian origin. Some materials mention that he may have previously been involved in stories related to underground gambling even before the Kazakhstani case. However, these data require additional verification.
How the scheme worked: murky traces
What’s interesting is something else: the entire structure looked not like a classic casino, but like a hybrid of fintech, a crypto exchanger, and a payment gateway. That’s why the investigation pays such attention not only to the bookmaker but also to the financial intermediaries.
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If you piece together the official AFM statements and investigative resource publications, the scheme looked roughly like this. The user deposited money through the formally legal bookmaker infrastructure. After that, the funds passed through a chain of payment companies, with the purpose of payments masked as legal operations. Then the money was split and went through cryptocurrency channels. Then the funds were withdrawn beyond Kazakhstan.
It was at the processing stage that structures like Gold Pay, Cyber Pay, and Pinnacle Financial Solutions emerged. For a classic illegal casino, this is almost an ideal model: formally, you have a license and a payment service, but in fact – an international money movement machine.
Here’s where the murkiest part of the story begins. There are no publicly available legally confirmed direct proofs that the scheme was managed from Russia or by Russian structures at this time. However, several factors make it worth looking closely in that direction.
First, the Pin-Up brand itself has long been operating in the markets of the former USSR and is traditionally associated with the Russian-speaking segment of gambling.
Second, similar high-risk processing schemes have historically been built through a network of companies linked to both Russian and offshore markets. After 2022, a significant part of such structures began actively migrating to Kazakhstan, Armenia, Cyprus, UAE, and other jurisdictions.
Third, publications from a number of investigative resources mention hints of connections of individual scheme participants with influential people from Russia’s financial-political environment, who have been most actively «cultivating» Kazakhstan in the last five years. And the very logic of the business shows: without serious political and banking «cover», such billion-dollar operations cannot exist.
Because this is not about an underground casino in a basement. These are transactions through banks, licensed payment structures, crypto exchange, international transfers, and massive advertising infrastructure. Such schemes usually live exactly as long as it is beneficial for someone at the top to pretend that nothing unusual is happening.
The Ukrainian direction in this story looks no less sensitive, although in the overall summary it also leads to Russia. After the legalization of gambling business, Ukraine became one of the largest online betting markets in the region. Around it, an industry of payment services, affiliate networks, and marketing agencies quickly grew. Even at the time of adopting the relevant law in Ukraine, there were a lot of publications claiming that it was the Russians who were pushing this decision, as they needed a legal platform, and they had the corresponding capital and influence on the Ukrainian authorities.
Moreover, it’s worth noting that Pin-Up’s operations in Ukraine caused a huge scandal, as it turned out that the brand is closely linked to the RF. In connection with this scandal and against the backdrop of the full-scale war, some market players, including Pin-Up, began moving operations to safer jurisdictions – primarily Kazakhstan and the UAE.
That’s why Ukrainian surnames, Ukrainian managers, and companies linked to former participants in the local gambling market keep popping up in investigative materials. The problem is that the gambling business in the post-Soviet space has long existed as a single ecosystem without clear national borders. Today, a payment operator can be registered in Almaty, owners live in Dubai, development is in Kyiv, marketing goes through Cyprus, and money – passes through crypto and settles who knows where.
Druzhinsky and Levkovych – who stands behind them?
As for the scandal’s protagonists – Dmytro Druzhynskyi and Maryna Levkovych – there’s one more intriguing question: where did they disappear to? And the exact answer to this question is still unknown. Kazakhstan placed both on the international wanted list, but there is no information about their detention.
Investigative publications suggest that the suspects may have left Kazakhstan long before the active phase of the investigation and moved to one of the jurisdictions traditionally popular among gambling structures – UAE, Cyprus, or Eastern European countries.
There is one more important nuance in the search for Druzhinsky and Levkovich – in recent weeks, several sites have reported attempts to mass-delete publications about their case from search results and public access.
Such a fact by itself proves nothing. But in the world of gray gambling, this is considered almost a mandatory crisis management procedure. First, a stream of publications is launched. Then a stream of deletions begins. Then new companies and new brands appear. And very often the same people continue to work – just under a different name.
One can assume that Dmytro Druzhynskyi and Maryna Levkovych will safely weather the storm and receive guarantees that the case will be shelved. But for that, the scandal needs to die down and publications about their involvement in the scam need to disappear. From which two conclusions follow: someone very influential really stands behind the pair, and the services of Druzhynskyi and Levkovych are urgently needed by this person or these people.
And therefore, the main question of this story – is not Druzhynskyi and Levkovych. People of this level are usually not the ultimate beneficiaries, but operators: they build infrastructure, negotiate with banks, ensure processing, solve license issues.
And the billion-dollar flows they manage never belong exclusively to managers. That’s why the Pin-Up case in Kazakhstan looks so sensitive. If the investigation really reaches the ultimate beneficiaries, it could be not just a local criminal case, but a transnational network involving representatives of the financial, cryptocurrency, and gambling businesses of several countries.
Most investigators name Pin-Up owner Dmitriy Punin as the beneficiary of the scheme, but is that really the case? The thing is that at one time there were a lot of investigations on the web claiming that influential figures from both RF and Ukraine stand behind Punin. Therefore, there is no answer to the question of who the real beneficiary of the scheme is either.
For now, the public picture looks like this. Kazakhstani authorities are demonstrating a tough reaction. The suspects are wanted. Information about the case continues to appear in waves. Both investigative resources and platforms with dubious reputations are actively working around the topic. Parallel to this, a mass procedure of cleaning up negative information about Druzhynskyi and Levkovych is underway.
And this usually means one thing: the fight is not only in the courts, but also behind the scenes of justice and the public process. How it all ends – is still unclear. Because, on the other hand, the mass cleanup campaign is opposed by another, no less massive one – new materials with new details appear in place of the deleted ones. And this means that besides the forces standing behind Druzhynskyi and Levkovych, there are others opposing them.
And in general, the story of Dmytro Druzhynskyi and Maryna Levkovych – is a very modern post-Soviet plot. There are no suitcases of cash and underground casinos in hotels, like in the nineties.
There is crypto. There are payment gateways. There is a bookmaker’s license as an official facade. There is an international network of companies. There are people with multiple jurisdictions and passports. And there are huge amounts of money that disappear faster than court decisions appear.
And there is the main question that remains unanswered for now: who was the real master of this system. Because in such stories, processing organizers rarely turn out to be the last link.
