Cosmobet bribery shield: Mykhailo Zborovskyi casino bought an SBU clearance confirming no Ties to Russia for $20,000

A positive response from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) stating that Cosmobet had no ties to the aggressor state may, according to a court ruling, have been obtained through a bribe. The relevant circumstances emerged from a court decision issued in April 2025.

The Antikor portal reports that the company operating the casino and its nominal head, Mykhailo Zborovskyi, may have links to Russians.

According to the court ruling, an operative from the Operational Investigations Division of the Kyiv Regional Department of the National Police’s Internal Security Department, acting through an acquaintance who maintained contacts with officials of the Security Service of Ukraine, offered a $20,000 bribe in exchange for an official response stating that neither NeuroLink LLC nor its ultimate beneficial owner had any connection to citizens of the aggressor state, Russian capital, or sanctioned entities. The police officer allegedly acted in collusion with the management of the company.

NeuroLink LLC is the company that operates the Cosmobet online casino. Until May 2025, its founder was Mykhailo Zborovskyi, a resident of the village of Krasylivka in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

According to law enforcement findings, in addition to the $20,000 bribe for the desired conclusion that the casino had no ties to Russians, the police officer and the intermediary dealing with the SBU were allegedly supposed to receive approximately $45,000 per month from Zborovskyi and NeuroLink LLC.

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Moreover, once the above-mentioned response from the Security Service of Ukraine was officially issued and NeuroLink was able to continue operating without obstruction, the police officer was allegedly supposed to receive a monthly percentage of the company’s revenue. Part of that money — approximately UAH 100,000–200,000 — was to be passed on to the intermediary dealing with the SBU. The payments were allegedly offered for the “further settlement of issues that may arise regarding NeuroLink LLC’s connection with the aggressor state.”

In April 2025, the positive response from the SBU was obtained, and the intermediary was handed a $20,000 bribe. During the transfer of the money, the operative from the Operational Investigations Division was detained, and his belongings were seized as evidence.

Investigators documented all meetings between the alleged accomplices and their communications via messaging apps. They also seized documents that would allegedly have allowed Cosmobet to feel secure about continuing its operations.

The fact that Cosmobet’s management allegedly had to involve law enforcement officers willing to take bribes in order to obtain confirmation that the company had no links to Russia raises the question of whether it was possible to obtain the Ukrainian security service’s approval by any other means. After all, the company appears to have significant Russian connections.

Formally, NeuroLink LLC was founded in November 2023 by Mykhailo Zborovskyi and Neoplay LLC. The editorial team previously reported that, until a certain point, Zborovskyi had been far removed from the gambling business. He studied auditing and worked as an economist at a bank. The Cosmobet platform was officially launched in early June 2024. Since then, the internet has been flooded with similar articles on low-profile websites presenting Zborovskyi’s biography and his expert commentary on Ukraine’s gambling industry.

One of Mykhailo Zborovskyi’s previous places of employment is listed as XGen Solutions LTD. The same company is mentioned in a court ruling concerning the sanctioned Cosmolot online casino, which has been linked to Russian businessman Serhii Tokariev. Moreover, according to media reports, Zborovskyi himself allegedly previously worked at Cosmolot.

Mykhailo Zborovskyi’s official registered address is a house in the village of Krasylivka in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. However, the house is owned by his father.

Judging by the available information, Zborovskyi’s relative appears to have a history of alcohol-related driving offences, having been fined twice for drunk driving.

A man with exactly the same first name, surname, and patronymic as the nominal owner of the Cosmobet casino divorced his wife in March 2024. These records can be found in the court registry.

That same month, Zborovskyi’s presumed former wife became the owner of a two-room apartment in a newly built residential complex in Kyiv. She acquired the property through a deed of gift.

An apartment of a similar size in the same residential complex can currently be purchased for approximately $155,000.

So why did Zborovskyi and his superiors allegedly attempt to buy an SBU response stating that Cosmobet had no links to Russia?

At the beginning of 2025, Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) detained the nominal owner of another online casino, PIN-UP, which was suspected of laundering Russian money. Investigators established that the detained individual did not have the financial resources required to contribute UAH 30 million to the authorised capital of the company that obtained the gambling licence. The real owners were found to be Russians, while the casino allegedly financed the aggressor state and operated, among other places, in temporarily occupied territories.

In July 2025, Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi District Court ordered a special confiscation, transferring UAH 2.6 billion from the company operating under the PIN-UP online casino brand to the state budget.

This story could hardly have gone unnoticed by Cosmobet’s management, as it partially resembles what is alleged to lie behind the company’s own façade: Zborovskyi as a nominal owner registered at his father’s rural house; NeuroLink LLC’s authorised capital of UAH 30 million — exactly the same amount as PIN-UP’s; and alleged links to Russian gambling businessmen through Tokariev.

According to the article, this is why, during the spring of 2025, Cosmobet’s owners allegedly bribed law enforcement officers with cash payments and a share of the company’s revenue in exchange for turning a blind eye to the online casino’s alleged Russian connections.

And this may also explain why, in May 2025, Zborovskyi was removed from the list of founders of NeuroLink LLC and replaced by a previously unknown Cypriot, Andrii Dobrovolskyi, who resides in a villa on the Limassol waterfront.

There is another noteworthy coincidence: according to the SBI, the management of the PIN-UP online casino — from which the largest amount of money in Ukrainian history was confiscated for the state budget — held meetings with Russians in Cyprus, the same country where Cosmobet’s new formal owner resides.

So, can Mykhailo Zborovskyi feel safe now that he has been removed from Cosmobet’s list of founders? Hardly, given that the bribe for the “positive” SBU response was allegedly handed over precisely during the period when he was in charge of the online casino.