Until recently, you could only hear Oleksandr Slobozhenko’s name on several YouTube programs serving as an example of an inspiring life success story. A guy from a modest family who, at the age of 25, is a dollar millionaire who owns a thriving business and, perhaps, one of the most expensive car fleets in Ukraine. He had some problems with the tax authorities, but who doesn’t?
Slobozhenko himself was not shy about publicity, so a few weeks ago anyone could follow his success. He posted photos and videos of his foreign travels, car races, fun with friends, and, of course, fundraising for the Armed Forces.
However, after the UP investigators found out that Slobozhenko had been struck off the military register, he suddenly limited his activity on social media. He also refused to comment on the facts published by journalists.
Instead, NGL.media decided to analyze other areas of the young millionaire’s life and discovered that the story of the military record is not the only surprise connected to Slobozhenko.
Who is Oleksandr Slobozhenko and where did he get his money?
Oleksandr Slobozhenko was born in the village of Bilohorodka near Kyiv, and spent his entire childhood and youth there. Several interviews with Slobozhenko reveal that he is the only child from a fairly ordinary family with no direct ties to influential officials or businessmen who could invest in him financially or otherwise contribute to his earnings. Slobozhenko’s complimentary Wikipedia biography states that he started earning his first money online as a teenager, promoting publics and chats on social media.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko with his grandparents in the family home in Bilohorodka
For the last eight years, Oleksandr Slobozhenko has been engaged in traffic arbitrage Traffic arbitrage (affiliate marketing) is the purchase of traffic (visitors) on one site and reselling it to another for profit. The arbitrager receives payment for each reference, mainly in the sphere of gambling games of chance, in particular, online casinos , which is currently being restricted in Ukraine, and betting bets on sports events . Owing to well-configured advertising, arbitrageurs working in this field bring potential customers to advertisers’ websites or apps and receive money for them.
Slobozhenko’s company Traffic Devils, engaged in traffic arbitrage since 2019, has become quite successful in this area and,
according to Slobozhenko himself, brings him a lot of profit. Very big profits.
Slobozhenko does not hide the fact that he likes being high-profile and visible. He even bought ads from popular bloggers to achieve this. Today, the 25-year-old millionaire has almost half a million followers on Instagram and just under 160 thousand Tik-Tok subscribers. He often appears as a guest on popular YouTube shows. For example, Ramina Eskhakzai’s video with Slobozhenko alone has garnered more than 1.2 million views. Some time ago, he applied for the registration of the Alex Slobozhenko Alex Slobozhenko trademark – that’s how he is known on Instagram and TikTok.
It was his desire to obsessively demonstrate the details of his life in public that played a cruel joke on Slobozhenko.
Judging by his social media, Oleksandr Slobozhenko behaves like a typical parvenu: he buys dozens of luxury cars, mostly sports cars (Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mercedes Maybach, McLaren, Chevrolet Corvette, BMW M3 Competition, and others), expensive watches, flaunts his real estate and sky-high expenses spent on travelling and gifts to his friends.
According to him, his entire fleet was worth USD 3 million last year.
He regularly participates in street races in sports cars, breaking traffic rules, drives a buggy through the protected areas of the Carpathians, and flies around the world in private jets: in short, he is living his best life.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko with his McLaren 720S
In the end, Oleksandr Slobozhenko was never hiding the fact that he earned a lot, tens of millions of hryvnias a month. Therefore, his expenses may well correspond to his income, and how he spends them is a matter of taste.
So what is the problem then?
Mom likes speed
Surprisingly, Slobozhenko hardly owns anything – officially, у he owns only a 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer and a 2019 BMW S1000RR motorcycle. At the same time, he claims his personal car fleet presently consists of more than 18 vehicles. Slobozhenko regularly reports purchases of new luxury cars, although he never registers them in his name. The situation is the same with real estate.
However, grandmother, Nina Zvir, 75, seems to be very successful in comparison with her grandson. The pensioner, who still lives in the village of Bilohorodka, last year became the owner of two apartments in the luxurious Kyiv skyscraper Taryan Towers. According to her grandson, these apartments cost him $700,000. His posts and stories made it clear that he would be living in the apartment, and not his grandmother.
Slobozhenko also bought two parking spaces in this residential complex; and even those were registered not in his name, but in the name of his mother, Iryna Zvir, 45. She also owns another apartment in a residential complex in Pechersk in the center of Kyiv 36B Konovaltsia Street .
Oleksandr Slobozhenko also registered a part of his car fleet in his mother’s name, including Mercedes Benz Maybach S580 (2022), BMW M3 (2022), Ferrari SF90 Stradale (2022) and other cars. In one of his interviews, Slobozhenko jokingly quoted former MP Oleksandr Dubinsky, who explained the large number of luxury cars his mother owned using the now legendary phrase “Mom loves speed”. Although Slobozhenko used this phrase in the interview to explain his personal passion for cars, these words look like a direct quote from Dubinsky now.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko next to the BMW M3 registered in his mother’s name
Previously, Iryna Zvir, 45, worked as a cosmetologist, but in the summer of 2023 she registered as a private entrepreneur with the main activity “other types of education”. A few months later, Slobozhenko registered Traffic Devices LLC with the main activity of “advertising agencies,” where his mother was appointed director. NGL.media tried to talk to Iryna Zvir, but at first, she said that she did not know Oleksandr Slobozhenko at all, and on the second attempt she suggested the journalist addressed her questions directly to her son and hung up.
Slobozhenko’s grandmother, 75, a former labor teacher, has also become an entrepreneur: a few weeks ago, Nina Zvir registered as a private entrepreneur with the main activity of “consulting on commercial activities and management”. So, it seems that she may soon become part of her grandson’s arbitration empire.
According to NGL.media, another car from Slobozhenko’s fleet belongs to Andrii Medianyk, 49, a former police officer from Donetsk. It is a Toyota Land Cruiser 200, which is used by Oleksandr Slobozhenko’s security. Medianyk also owns a Volkswagen Crafter minibus. We assume that Medianyk may work as Slobozhenko’s bodyguard. During the phone call, Medianyk told NGL.media that he did not know Slobozhenko and this was the first time he had heard about the cars.
So why doesn’t Slobozhenko register his property in his name? One possibility is that in case he has any problems with the law, his property will not be seized. Although who knows – maybe he is worried that because of the new law on mobilization, his Ferrari and Lamborghini will be seized for the needs of the front?
Tax troubles
The Traffic Devils company, which Slobozhenko claimed to have founded in 2019, was actually officially registered only in November 2023. Slobozhenko himself also wasn’t declaring his entrepreneurial activity for a long time.
Nevertheless, at some point the young millionaire became of interest to the tax authorities. In June 2020, the National Police opened the first criminal proceedings under the articles on tax evasion and “legalization of criminally obtained property”. Tax authorities estimated that Slobozhenko owed the state budget almost UAH 54.8 million.
As part of the investigation into the case, police searched Slobozhenko’s home and office in downtown Kyiv, where they seized equipment and documents. However, the seized items were later returned to him.
By the way, while the investigation in this case was ongoing, Slobozhenko filed an application for registration of the Traffic Devils trademark which was approved two years later. However, he was still in no hurry to legally register the company.
Judging by the court rulings published in the state register, this case of tax evasion stopped at the stage of pre-trial investigation in 2022. Slobozhenko himself now calls the case “fabricated”.
It is noteworthy that within a few weeks after the case was opened, he registered as a group 3 individual entrepreneur, which is possible provided that the entrepreneur’s annual income does not exceed 1167 minimum wages (UAH 8.3 million). However, Slobozhenko himself claims he earns more than a million dollars a month. Also, the lifestyle that Slobozhenko has been publicly demonstrating until recently clearly shows that his annual income is much higher than UAH 8.3 million. It is likely that he transfers only a part of his income through his individual entrepreneur’s accounts.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko in Dubai in December 2020
So it is not surprising that in 2023, law enforcement again focused their attention on Slobozhenko. This time, the criminal proceedings were opened by the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) on suspicion of tax evasion (Art. 212 of the CCU), gambling organization (Art. 203-2 of the CCU) and legalization of proceeds of crime on a particularly large scale (Art. 209 OF THE CCU). In November last year, Slobozhenko claimed he planned to pay the accrued taxes to the state budget, and denied the accusations of organizing gambling. NGL.media did not find any confirmation that these taxes had been paid.
In November 2023, Slobozhenko finally registered Traffic Devices LLC, simultaneously creating another company, Traffic Devices Agency, in which his friend, Roman Dziubenko, 31, became a co-founder. However, by the end of 2023, both Traffic Devices and Traffic Devices Agency declared only losses UAH 64.5 thousand and UAH 59.1 thousand, respectively .
At the same time, Traffic Devils is considered one of the largest companies in Ukraine in the field of traffic arbitration. The company’s LinkedIn page states it employs more than 400 people in its offices in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Poland. Before the Russian invasion in 2022, Traffic Devils had offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’s hard to investigate what the status of these divisions is now, but last year, the Russian service Partnerkin published an interview with Traffic Devils team leaders Oleg and Semion [the interview didn’t mention their family names]. And the Traffic Devils app rental site is still in Russian and promotes itself as “an automated app rental service from the largest arbitrage team in the CIS”.
Also, Oleksandr Slobozhenko owns 13% of Ikigai Group, , which is engaged in real estate leasing. This company was registered two months ago in Kyiv, and its founders, in addition to Slobozhenko, are entrepreneurs Yevhen Trusov, Oleksandr Gorkushyn, Maksym Yakupov, Vladyslav Myroshnychenko and Vitalii Dukhopelov.
“I’m having a great time…”
Judging by his Instagram, Oleksandr Slobozhenko regularly travels abroad with his friends, despite the restrictions that exist for men of military age. As our colleagues from the UP recently found out, he is excluded from military register because he is unfit for service. Simply put, due to serious health problems, he cannot be mobilized. This allows him to cross the border without any obstacles and does not put any restrictions on him.
“In the videos posted on social media, the young man does things that are not for seriously ill people. In addition to racing expensive cars, he lifts weights, flips into a pond, rides water and regular motorcycles, snowmobiles, etc.”, noted the UP journalists.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko’s last post on Instagram in April 2024
It is the military medical commission (MMC) that establishes a person’s unfitness for the military service, and only a very complicated health condition can be a basis for such a conclusion. For example, progressive tuberculosis, AIDS, severe forms of viral hepatitis, cancer, profound mental retardation, severe psychosis, etc.
These must be extremely serious illnesses that progress rapidly and make it impossible for a person to function normally.
Slobozhenko was issued a certificate of unfitness by the Holosiivskyi District Military Medical Commission in Kyiv in October 2022. The conclusion was signed by Volodymyr Prykhodko, the head of the Holosiivskyi District Military Medical Commission. Early last year, he was accused of taking bribes for removal fom military register. Prykhodko is no longer the head of the district military medical commission and has resigned from his main job at a Kyiv hospital. He is currently awaiting sentencing.
We cannot say that Slobozhenko was one of Prykhodko’s “clients”, because such details of the case are not disclosed until the verdict is passed. However, Slobozhenko’s active life, which includes extreme entertainment and alcohol, gives reason to doubt his health problems.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko on a snowboard in the Carpathians
According to NGL.media, Oleksandr has traveled abroad 12 times in the last two years. He traveled with the aforementioned owner of two of his cars, Andrii Medianyk, several times.
At the same time, Slobozhenko left Ukraine on April 9, 2022 for the first time since the war started. He was not yet declared unfit for the military service back then. In one of his Instagram posts, he claimed he had left legally, but did not specify how.
NGL.media found out that Slobozhenko left Ukraine as a volunteer. According to Ukrtransbezpeka the official administrator of the “Shliakh” information system , he was entered into the “Shliakh” system by the Transcarpathian Regional Military Administration. He left via Uzhhorod in a Volkswagen Crafter minibus, accompanied by the aforementioned Andrii Medianyk.
Slobozhenko returned to Ukraine only six months later, in October 2022, and at the same time allegedly passed a military medical commission, which issued him a certificate of unfitness for military service and struck him off the military register. This gave him the opportunity to travel outside of Ukraine at any time without any restrictions, which he regularly uses.
According to NGL.media, Slobozhenko last traveled abroad on March 28 this year and has not yet returned to Ukraine.
Oleksandr Slobozhenko ignored NGL.media’s repeated attempts to obtain his comments for this article.