ESIC Hands Down Lifetime and Five-Year Bans in New Counter-Strike Integrity Case

ESIC Hands Down Lifetime and Five-Year Bans in New Counter-Strike Integrity Case

The Esports Integrity Commission has issued a new set of sanctions in Counter-Strike, banning four players for cheating and match manipulation after what it described as a series of integrity investigations. According to ESIC, the case involved the use of prohibited cheating software, including DMA-based tools, as well as participation in match-manipulation activity across multiple teams and competitions. The players sanctioned are Egor “zLy” Polyakov, Dmitriy “propleh” Senigov, Alexandr “Ruler” Maximov, and Petr “Damiel” Markheev. HLTV, which first reported the development in the Counter-Strike scene on April 23, said the penalties range from five years to a lifetime ban.  

The most severe punishment was given to zLy, who received a lifetime ban from all ESIC-member events. ESIC said that decision reflected both the seriousness of the conduct and the player’s formal admission of guilt, along with his own request for a permanent ban. HLTV added that zLy, now 26, was last seen competing for SEAW in the Asian Open Qualifier for ESL Challenger Melbourne 2024. The remaining three players all received five-year suspensions, though ESIC outlined different disciplinary grounds in each case. Propleh was banned after failing to respond to the charges, something ESIC treats as a tacit admission of liability. Ruler was sanctioned after partially acknowledging the allegations without presenting a substantive rebuttal, while Damiel was given a five-year ban after what ESIC described as an effective admission of guilt through an unqualified response to the Notice of Charge.  

Under ESIC’s ruling, all four sanctions took effect immediately and apply to every ESIC-member tournament, qualifier, league, and related competition. The body also stated that its member organizations have been notified, and that non-member tournament operators and publishers may independently choose to recognize the sanctions as well. In practical terms, the ban does not just cover playing: the individuals are barred from participating in ESIC-member events in any capacity, including as coaches, managers, or staff.  

Among the four names, propleh is the most recognizable to many Counter-Strike followers because of his past time with Monolith, 1WIN, and NASR. HLTV noted that he was also part of the Victory Zigzag lineup that qualified for the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown 2023, although that team never got to play the event after Joel “joel” Holmlund was suspended by ESIC and coach Ivan “Hardwell” Alekseev was banned by FACEIT for cheating. That earlier episode had already placed Victory Zigzag under a cloud, and propleh’s new five-year ban adds another major integrity case to the team’s orbit in retrospect.  

This latest outcome is also directly connected to an older ESIC investigation involving Erkhan “gokushima” Bagynanov. In October 2025, ESIC reduced gokushima’s original two-year sanction to 18 months and 13 days after he provided what the commission called material assistance, including information and corroboration that supported action against other participants. In that official statement, ESIC specifically said his cooperation helped it issue sanctions against zLy, Ruler, propleh, and Peter “Damiel” Markheev, while also contributing information to another ongoing match-fixing investigation. HLTV likewise reported that the four newly sanctioned players had already been issued sanctions by ESIC in October 2025 as part of that broader case, with Thursday’s announcement bringing those names back into focus publicly.  

The case also fits into a broader pattern of recent ESIC enforcement in Counter-Strike. On April 1, 2026, ESIC announced a four-year sanction for Dmytro “nifee” Tediashvili over match manipulation and betting-related corruption tied to ESL Pro League Season 22. In that case, ESIC said it found suspicious betting patterns surrounding proposition markets and repeated in-game incidents involving Molotov or incendiary deaths under questionable circumstances.