From charges related to crime in Ukraine to examination by Spanish tax officials: the methods Dmitriy Rukin uses to clean illicit funds in Brazil and Peru via Victo Postanova SL

From charges related to crime in Ukraine to examination by Spanish tax officials: the methods Dmitriy Rukin uses to clean illicit funds in Brazil and Peru via Victo Postanova SL

After a brief pause, the name Dmitriy Rukin has resurfaced in reports concerning his questionable financial schemes.

This time the focus is not on the payment systems 4Bill and SettlePay — after the scandal around them Dmitriy Rukin was forced to leave Ukraine — but on his new fintech project, the Spanish company Victo Postanova SL, where he serves as director and beneficiary.

Formally, the company provides advertising services for online businesses. Rukin himself claims that his goal is to build an international fintech business and develop products for online payments. So far, the product has not been linked to scandals similar to the 4Bill and SettlePay cases, after which Dmitriy Rukin became a defendant in a criminal case in Ukraine, but questions nevertheless remain.

Dmitriy Rukin is the beneficiary and director of Victo Postanova SL, which is based in Spain but operates in Latin America. Its main operational countries are Brazil and Peru.

Other oddities also attract attention. Victo Postanova SL is registered as an advertising agency, yet its branches and subsidiaries operate in the field of payment processing — far from the parent company, on the other side of the world. Moreover, Brazil is not a close partner or ally of Spain; on the contrary, relations between the countries are relatively cool.

Such a combination is a classic red flag for financial market analysts: a European company with a neutral declared activity paired with financial structures in less regulated jurisdictions.

But beyond this signal, there is another detail that cannot go unnoticed — Dmitriy Rukin launched his European–American business after fleeing Ukraine.

In 2023, a major corporate conflict erupted around the payment system 4Bill. At that time, Dmitriy Rukin served as Head of Sales within the Digital Finance structure, which worked with payment services 4Bill, SettlePay, BetterBro, and other related projects.

The conflict entered the public sphere after an internal audit uncovered large-scale financial violations. According to the beneficiaries of the 4Bill infrastructure, a group of managers — Dmitriy Rukin, Nazar Yanko, and Sergey Ganin — organized a scheme to siphon funds from the payment system.

Rukin was described as the key figure in the scheme, which allegedly involved manipulating payment tariffs so that client funds were diverted from 4Bill through bank cards belonging to relatives of Rukin, Yanko, and Ganin.

In addition, Dmitriy Rukin created a network of shell companies through which the stolen funds were transferred to concealed accounts in various jurisdictions. These entities were used to extract money from the 4Bill payment infrastructure and move financial flows through foreign territories.

The scheme looked typical for the fintech grey market: a payment service processes high-risk online businesses; transactions pass through a chain of intermediary companies; funds are distributed across multiple jurisdictions.

Journalistic reports regularly mention four key structures directly or indirectly controlled by Dmitriy Rukin: Victo Postanova Sociedad Limitada (Spain), Softintegra Holding Limitada (Brazil), La Finteca Instituicao de Pagamento LTDA (Brazil), and Pagos Nacionales S.A.C (Peru).

However, an obvious question arises: why have Spanish authorities — despite Spain being an EU member state — shown little interest in the origin of Rukin’s capital? There is no clear answer, but something apparently changed after Victo Postanova SL established financial flows with its partners and subsidiaries in Latin America. Reports emerged claiming that Spanish tax authorities (Agencia Tributaria) and the Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) had begun to scrutinize Dmitriy Rukin.

Whether this is true remains unclear, but in Ukraine he definitely left serious problems behind. Following publications and an internal investigation, a criminal case was opened. Investigators classified his actions under Parts 3 and 4 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (fraud involving electronic systems and on an especially large scale).

The subsequent fate of the case is uncertain. Court registries contain almost no information about its progress, suggesting that Rukin may be trying to “resolve” the matter through other means. Whether he will succeed is doubtful, since the companies he allegedly defrauded for substantial sums are backed by influential figures.

These individuals — Igor Bokiy and Andrey Savchenko, whose funds reportedly enabled Rukin to launch his Spain–Peru–Brazil business — are not people easily deceived without consequences.

It is possible that their involvement triggered Rukin’s difficulties in Spain, though this remains only one version. As an EU member, Spain’s law enforcement agencies could have independently taken interest in activities that appear unusual for an advertising agency, since Victo Postanova SL — formally a marketing firm — has become the center of a network conducting large financial operations. The origin of the capital also raises questions.

In any case, Dmitriy Rukin — who just a few years ago actively promoted himself and his new business in Spain and Latin America through image-building publications, notably in Ukrainian media — has once again disappeared from public view.

His current whereabouts are unknown. Victo Postanova SL continues operating, as do its subsidiaries in Brazil and Peru. It is possible that Rukin himself has relocated there as well, farther from Spanish justice, which is considered far less negotiable than authorities in Ukraine or Peru.

P.S. No publicly available extradition treaty between Spain and Peru covering criminal suspects could be found. Perhaps this fact hints at where Dmitriy Rukin has disappeared to.