The name of Timur Rokhlin—an investor in the Rocket delivery service—has emerged in a major international fraud case involving tens of millions of euros, even as sensitive details surrounding the story begin to quietly disappear.
As investigators in Germany and Ukraine unravel an alleged scheme involving fake investment platforms and money laundering tied to people in his circle, references to connections, assets and the role of key participants are gradually being removed from the public domain. It appears to be an attempt to erase the digital traces of a high-profile fraud that has already affected hundreds of victims across Europe.
Among the individuals listed by the prosecutor’s office of the German city of Bamberg as possibly linked to the case are citizens of Ukraine and Israel, according to a report by Dev.ua.
Among them is Timur Rokhlin, who invested in the well-known food delivery service Rocket in 2019. According to Ukrainian investigators, €10.8 million — allegedly proceeds of fraud — was transferred to a British company under Timur’s control. Some assets allegedly linked to Timur were frozen in late 2020. Lawyers have recently managed to lift some of those freezes. They insist all of their client’s funds were obtained legally.
At the end of March 2021, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced that two Kyiv residents had been taken into custody as suspects — alleged participants in the international fraud scheme. They could only leave pre-trial detention on bail set at 325 million hryvnias.
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What the case is about
The pre-trial investigation began following a request from prosecutors in Bamberg as part of cooperation between Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, Eurojust and Europol. According to investigators, an organised group of citizens of Ukraine and other countries operated a scam from 2017 to 2020.
The group allegedly lured citizens of European countries into investing money through specialised websites in the purchase and sale of precious metals, foreign currency, cryptocurrency, securities and other assets. Investors were promised returns of 100 times or more.
When victims attempted to withdraw their money in cash, operators from fraudulent call centres allegedly phoned them, posing as representatives of trading platforms, and demanded service fees and cash-out commissions — an additional 15% of the amount.
After payment, investors’ accounts were blocked and the funds placed there were allegedly appropriated by the organisers of the scheme.
The documented losses from the fraud amounted to €9 million. German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported at the time that around 400 people — citizens of European countries — had contacted police as victims of the scam.
According to investigators, the estimated monthly turnover of the scheme ranged from €8 million to €10 million. Most victims were citizens of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
During searches in Ukraine, investigators seized documents and three cars from suspects. Official photos released with the statement showed the moment two individuals were detained. Their faces were blurred. One of them stood beside a Toyota RAV4 in a field, wearing boots and ankle-deep in mud.
The same statement from the Prosecutor General’s Office also referred to earlier developments. It emerged that the first wave of searches in the case had taken place three months earlier, in December 2020. At that time, law enforcement officers seized a fleet of eight luxury vehicles, including Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes-Benz and other premium brands.
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Before New Year, the Prosecutor General’s Office posted a video on its YouTube channel showing that the vehicles were parked in the garage of a mansion with a rounded roof.
“By the way, all the cars seized by police belong to a Ukrainian whom international experts consider the main figure,” the German newspaper SZ wrote.
The total value of the frozen assets was €50 million.
Official statements did not specify who owned the luxury car fleet, nor did they reveal the identities of the two detainees. But several months later, the names surfaced on their own.
Ihor Kozlenko
A few months later, some details were clarified by the suspects’ own lawyers. In April, a post appeared on the Facebook page of the law firm Miller stating that the company was representing its client, Ihor Kozlenko.
The lawyers referred to the March statement by the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“Our client was accused of laundering proceeds obtained through criminal activity. The basis for this was the purchase of a car (Toyota RAV4) on credit, an apartment (57 square metres), and a plot of land. The combined value of this property is almost one hundred times lower than the alleged damages of 325 million hryvnias,” the post said.
A little later, in May 2021, a Facebook page titled Justice for Ihor Kozlenko appeared, run by Ihor’s wife. She wrote that the family had earned its property through honest work.
She also published details of her husband’s detention:
“In March 2021, my husband was returning from Kherson (where he had been with me because I was there on a work trip abroad) to Kyiv. I was still finishing my business trip that day. Operatives grabbed him in a field, in the mud (where he got stuck because he was hurrying back, knowing that a second search had taken place at our home while we were away).”
Most importantly, in her very first post she published a screenshot of the cover page of a request from prosecutors in Bamberg. The German authorities asked Ukrainian law enforcement to carry out further investigations into a group of individuals.
Among them were the second suspect placed in custody in March — Yurii Kopachevskyi — as well as other persons who may have been connected to the case: Andrii Kurochkin (a Ukrainian citizen) and three Israeli citizens — Mikhael Chebotar, Maksym Baranovskyi Rafael, and Timur Rokhlin.
Ihor Kozlenko was not among them.
The editorial team sent a request with follow-up questions to Miller, but received a reply stating that the law firm would not comment on their client’s case. Ihor’s wife also declined to disclose any details publicly.
A request was also sent to the Bamberg prosecutor’s office. A response came from senior prosecutor Thomas Goger:
“Unfortunately, at this stage I cannot disclose any information, as the investigation is still ongoing.”
A dead end? Not really
If investigators in Ukraine managed to secure asset freezes, then traces would inevitably exist in the court registry. That proved to be the case here as well.
It turned out that, as part of assistance to the German pre-trial investigation, Ukrainian authorities froze assets belonging to a number of companies and private individuals. According to investigators, these entities were linked to figures in the case. All of the freezes were connected to the same criminal proceeding, numbered 62020100000000583.
In particular, Ihor Kozlenko attempted to challenge the seizure of the land plot mentioned earlier, but in July 2021 his appeal was rejected. His challenge regarding the frozen vehicle was also denied. Efforts to lift the freeze on the apartment likewise failed.
What role did Kozlenko allegedly play?
According to the Ukrainian investigation, from approximately the second half of 2016 he searched for and recruited Ukrainian citizens who, in exchange for payment, provided their personal data.
Later, those individuals allegedly travelled repeatedly to the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia and other countries on Kozlenko’s instructions, where they registered legal entities. These companies were allegedly intended to receive funds taken from victims of the fraud.
The list of companies named in the case materials includes:
- PETRAMKO HOLDING OU (Estonia)
- DATA MANAGEMENT EOOD (Bulgaria)
- E-WATCH TECHNOLOGIES SRO (Czech Republic)
- X-LIGHT MARKETING OO (Estonia)
- WDI MEDIA MARKETING S.R.O. (Czech Republic)
- MAGNETS DIGITAL S.R.O. (Czech Republic)
- MOONFOCUS CONSULTING S.R.O. (Czech Republic)
- VOLCANO MAX SOLUTIONS S.R.O. (Czech Republic)
Alternative sources indicate that Ihor was indeed listed as an officer of the last company from 2017 to 2018. The company was later transferred to another Ukrainian citizen.
Why was the bail set so high — 325 million hryvnias? Allegedly because that was roughly the amount stolen from Europeans through websites and fake trading platforms such as Tradecapita, Fibonetix, NobelTrade, Forbslab and Huludox, reportedly created with the involvement of Ukrainians.
Ihor Kozlenko is currently being held in pre-trial detention. His lawyers initially chose a defence strategy focused on publicity through Facebook, but so far it has not produced the desired result.
At the beginning of August, Kozlenko’s wife published a screenshot of a recent response from the Bamberg prosecutor’s office stating that Ihor was allegedly not considered a suspect in the German investigation.
“It is much easier to catch a guy who registered companies that were later misused by other people,” she wrote on the Facebook page where she runs a support blog for her husband.
He was the second person detained by law enforcement in March 2021.
According to Ukrainian investigators, Yurii coordinated the activities of the criminal scheme and was responsible for its financial operations. He allegedly managed accounts, handled cash withdrawals and deposits, and paid for server rentals and telecommunications services.
Case materials state that in April 2020, European law enforcement agencies conducted raids on call centres located in Serbia and Bulgaria. Their operators allegedly maintained contact with victims and persuaded them to “invest”.
Nine people were detained at the time. According to the German newspaper SZ, citing local prosecutors, the analysis of evidence seized during the operation in Belgrade and Sofia by Bamberg criminal police specialists revealed “traces leading to Ukraine”.
A significant lead emerged in the Ukrainian case files: German authorities allegedly established that hosting fees for fraudulent websites (Huludox, Fibonetix and Forbslab) on servers of the German provider Hetzner Online GmbH were paid from a PrivatBank card account belonging to Kopachevskyi.
Until November 2016, he had also been the head of the Ukrainian company Quest Marketing. According to Ukrainian investigators, its employees participated in creating fraudulent internet sites and platforms.
Between 2018 and 2021, Kopachevskyi reportedly invested in the construction of three apartments, purchased land worth 1 million hryvnias, bought a house for 6 million hryvnias, another apartment for 6 million hryvnias, and five vehicles. The latest — a Mercedes-Benz GLC 250 — allegedly cost him 2.5 million hryvnias.
In May, his lawyers attempted to have Kopachevskyi — who supports three children — released from detention and placed under house arrest. The court refused.
Ukrainian investigators believe he was allegedly a trusted associate and close aide to Timur Rokhlin, whose name was also mentioned in the Bamberg request.
Timur Rokhlin
According to investigators, significantly larger assets were linked to Timur Rokhlin.
In December 2020, the following companies were frozen:
1. Spetstorg, owned by Israeli citizen Ihor Rokhlin, the father of Timur Rokhlin. According to the land registry numbers cited in the case, the company owns a private house measuring 1,408 square metres in the settlement of Kozyn. The plot is located directly on the bank of the Dnipro River. The freeze on this company was lifted by the appellate court in late July 2021.
2. Ukrdonstroynii. The ultimate beneficial owner is Ihor Rokhlin. According to the case materials, the company owns office real estate in a business centre with a total area of 1,694 square metres at 62 Sichovykh Striltsiv Street. The asset freeze on the company was lifted by decision of the appellate court in early August 2021.
3. Buildings Empire (ultimate beneficial owner — Ihor Rokhlin), which owns a non-residential building in the Podil district measuring 853 square metres at 15B Borysohlibska Street. A BeeWorking coworking space operates at this address. In July 2021, the appellate court upheld the decision of the first instance court. The asset freeze remains in place.
- Renome Rent — an office centre at 5 Dilova Street with a total area of 11,000 square metres. Attempts to overturn the asset freeze were also unsuccessful.
Ukrainian investigators justified the seizure of the assets by alleging that funds received from defrauded foreign citizens through a network of European companies (mentioned earlier) were later accumulated in the accounts of Remini Consulting LP (United Kingdom).
According to registration records, the company has been controlled since August 2020 by a certain Oleksandr Ban, a Ukrainian citizen. Previously, from August 2018, rights to the company were held by Yurii Kopachevskyi.
According to investigators, between September 2018 and March 2020 alone, €35.9 million allegedly derived from criminal activity was transferred into the accounts of Remini Consulting LP. Of that amount, €10.8 million was allegedly sent to the accounts of RIJV Holdings Ltd (United Kingdom), which had been controlled by Timur Rokhlin since October 2018.
Published materials in the court registry state that in 2019 RIJV Holdings Ltd became the founder of a number of companies in Ukraine, including:
- Ukrdonstroynii
- BeeWorking (the BeeWorking coworking network)
- Biconstract (office centre at 5A Dilova Street)
- Buildings Empire
- Arnas Group
- Podol Group
- Homeland Ukraine
The current ultimate beneficial owner of all these companies is Ihor Rokhlin, Timur’s father.
Homeland Ukraine was previously listed as the founder of the food delivery service Rocket Delivery (TM Rocket, Raketa). It is now controlled by another entity — the Cypriot company Tisea Fresh Food Ltd. However, the main ultimate beneficial owner remains the same: Ihor Rokhlin, who reportedly controls 86% of the capital.
According to Ukrainian investigators, in 2020 Timur allegedly re-registered controlled businesses under his father’s structures in order to conceal assets acquired with proceeds of criminal activity.
Rocket and the Rokhlins
In April, Forbes published the story of how Rocket was created. The magazine wrote that Timur Rokhlin was the person who saved Rocket from ending up in the startup graveyard.
According to the report, at the end of summer 2019 he bought the project from the group-discount service Pokupon. The startup founders, Stanislav Dmytryk and Oleksii Yukhymchuk, retained minority stakes of 7% each.
Forbes background on father and son
Ihor Rokhlin — a graduate of the Baku Institute of Oil and Chemistry, and an Israeli citizen since 2005. He served on the board of directors of the Romanian oil refinery RAFO Onești, which was acquired in 2006 by Russian businessman Yakov Goldovsky.
Timur Rokhlin, a graduate of Rotterdam School of Management, moved to Ukraine several years ago after seeing major potential in the market. He holds a Ukrainian passport, sole proprietor status, and a fleet of cars whose centrepiece is a Rolls-Royce Wraith worth around $500,000 — the same vehicle mentioned in the case materials.
He reportedly invested in Rocket for a simple reason: he could not find a convenient food-ordering service. According to Forbes, in public communications his partners preferred not to mention Rokhlin by name, instead referring to him as “the third partner”.
Thanks to investments from the Rokhlin family, Rocket quickly rose to compete with the popular Spanish food-delivery service Glovo.
“To achieve its current metrics, the company would have needed to spend at least $3–5 million,” Taras Potychnyi, former head of Estonia’s Bolt in Ukraine, said in the Forbes article.
And everyone stays silent
Timur Rokhlin’s Rocket partners — Stanislav Dmytryk and Oleksii Yukhymchuk — declined to comment on the investigation in which he is mentioned.
“I’m not aware of this issue,” wrote the first.
“I’m not aware of this case. I’m focused on developing Rocket,” wrote the second.
BeeWorking CEO Illia Aizenshtat also commented. Asked whether he was still in contact with Timur, he replied negatively.
A journalist from Dev.ua attended a meeting with Timur Rokhlin’s lawyers from Klochkov & Partners. Ivan Starosta, who represents Timur in court, said his client does not wish to engage in any publicity during the pre-trial investigation, unless and until the case is transferred to court.
Timur’s lawyers insist that all funds and assets linked to their client in the investigation were obtained legally.
No information could be found about the three other individuals mentioned in the Bamberg request — Ukrainian citizen Andrii Kurochkin and Israeli citizens Mikhael Chebotar and Maksym Baranovskyi Rafael.
Crime & Courts Correspondent
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