Mostbet case continues after March arrests, with Payment Center executives detained and complaints about unpaid customer balances

After the March detention of Sergey Lagutenko, whom many in the source describe as the founder of the illegal bookmaker Mostbet, the pressure moved down the chain: employees were left without lawyers, the detained are not being released, and offices reportedly stood empty after searches. For PSPs, the part worth watching is simple: once a gambling flow gets dragged into enforcement, the payment side tends to be next in line.

1. In mid-March, Sergey Lagutenko was detained and arrested in Russia. The source says many people consider him the founder of Mostbet, an illegal bookmaker company. It also says media link Mostbet to Ukrainian public figure Arsen Avakov.
2. At the end of March, a Moscow court placed the management of Payment Center in custody. The source connects that move to the payment service’s work with Mostbet, which is the detail PSPs and acquiring teams should care about: payment infrastructure is not treated as a passive bystander when the underlying merchant is under scrutiny.
3. According to the source, company employees were left without support from management, were not provided with lawyers, and the detained employees are not being released. After searches, the offices were reportedly empty, and people were afraid to return.
4. The source also says social media is filled with customer complaints that money is not being paid out. That is usually the part that turns a compliance problem into an operational one: if withdrawals stall, the merchant story stops being just legal and becomes a payment-runs issue.
5. Lagutenko is also described as a co-founder of the CPA network Lgaming, the product affiliate program Leadbit, and the MAC conferences, with one MAC event held on 25-27 May.