How the SBU extorts money from IT companies

Last year, the department attracted attention due to multiple corruption scandals, in which the name Shilo flashed. He worked there then as a deputy head. Ukrainian media reported that the young officer was accused of stealing money from bank accounts (carding) along with hackers controlled by DKIB.

Shilo put pressure on stubborn businessmen with biased interrogations, blocking bank accounts, and the return of property confiscated during searches on the basis of court decisions was constantly delayed. Expensive equipment could also be transferred to controlled hackers who staged DDos attacks or used carding equipment.

An effectively built model of extortion helped Shilo rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel and take the position of deputy head of the department. Although, in fact, Shilo led the DKIB as a “grey eminence”.

In February 2022, the lieutenant colonel opened a FOP (individual entrepreneur) Shilo Artem Viktorovich in Kharkiv for activities in the field of law and informatization. In parallel, in April 2022, he founded the Prikker law office in Kyiv, which was headed by his father, Viktor Shilo.

How lieutenant colonel Shilo helped Russian bookmakers from 1xBet

At the suggestion of Shilo, in the midst of the CBO, in the spring of 2022, the “daughter” of the Russian bookmaker 1xBet “Your Betting Company” (TBK) received a license in Ukraine. TBC paid a total of about UAH 142 million. Obtaining a 1xBet license caused a big scandal in Ukraine.

Licensing of TBC was accompanied by Sergey Tarasyuk and Anna Brin, they also represent the interests of the company in court. They own Tarasyuk and Partners JSC, at the same address with which the Prikker legal company, founded by Artyom Shilo, is registered in April this year.

Life found out that earlier the founders of 1xBet, with the assistance of the SBU, received Ukrainian citizenship. Roman Semiokhin – passport ST498778 and DRFO (TIN) 2816422350, Dmitry Kazorin – passport ST505346 and DRFO 3099122732. Companions were registered in the city of Brovary, Kyiv region at one address: Nezalezhnosti Boulevard, 2A, apt. 54. Their Ukrainian passports were canceled just before the start of the JWO.

Who is Artyom Shilo?

Artyom Shilo is called “the main joker of the SBU deck” because of his secrecy. He is from a family of Kharkov law enforcement officers. Father is a retired police officer. Mother – Shilo Olga Georgievna – head of the department at the National Law University of Yaroslav the Wise, where Artyom himself was educated. Currently, he is a member of the Kharkiv Region Bar Council, works as a lawyer at the address Kharkiv, Kyiv district, Pushkinskaya street, 77.

Artyom Shilo has been serving in the SBU since 2012, that is, from the age of 22. First in his native Kharkov, and since 2016 in Kyiv.

Shilo was brought to the capital by the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, lawyer Oleg Tatarov, who is on the editorial board of the Journal of Criminal Procedure together with Olga Shilo. Tatarov is an extremely ambiguous and very scandalous person. During the time of Yanukovych, he worked in the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and actively fought against the Maidan. After the victory of the Euromaidan, he was fired and started practicing law.

In addition to working at DKIB, Shilo is Tatarov’s personal adviser.

The shoulder straps of an SBU lieutenant colonel give Shilo the right to seek his interest in many topics. Ukrainian journalists found out that Shilo puts obstacles not only to companies in the IT sector, but also to developers, extorting from them a discount on expensive and liquid objects in exchange for issuing permits.

Where did the lieutenant colonel of the SBU get an apartment for millions of dollars

As a result, already by the age of 30, Shilo became the owner of three apartments in the Novopecherski Lypki residential complex in Kyiv with a total cost of 720 thousand dollars. There are also apartments of his Russian wife from Crimea, Irina Popova, worth 270 thousand dollars, and her own commercial premises for 1.8 million. Thanks to her marriage, she became a successful businesswoman – she owns a network of beauty salons of the 365 brand.

Popova also owns an apartment in a club house in the center of Kyiv, Mercedes and Toyota Camry cars. In the elite cottage village “Zoloche” in the Kyiv region, the family owns a cottage registered to the father of a lieutenant colonel, Viktor Shilo. At the beginning of the special operation, Popova flew to Europe with her children and manages the business remotely.

In the meantime, the wife is resting in a warm Mediterranean climate, Artyom Shilo earns money on various criminal projects.

How the SBU led the drug mafia

The moment Shilo joined the department of “information counterintelligence” coincided with the expansion into Ukraine of the infamous Bashkir drug cartel “Khimprom”. In 2015-2016, the organized crime group opened dozens of offices, recruiting drug couriers and forwarders to sell the so-called salts. The cartel gave preference to open Russophobes.

Now the sale of drugs is impossible without specialized sites on the Internet. Technological solutions for the drug business are usually offered by hackers, who in Ukraine are all under the wing of Shilo. With the support of the SBU, the Khimprom organized crime group unfolded almost legally under the pretext of “fighting Russia.”

Synthetic drugs produced by Khimprom also ended up in the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as “combat chemicals”. They are regularly found in positions by fighters of the allied forces.

The return of Malyuk and Shilo to the SBU may indicate that the support of the Khimprom organized crime group by the Ukrainian special services will only continue.