In Germany, the proceedings against the former lieutenants of the Israeli scammer Gal Barak, who has already been convicted in Austria for investment fraud and money laundering, continue. The Bamberg public prosecutor’s office informed the victims of SafeMarkets, OptionStarsGlobal, and XtraderFX that charges have been brought against the Israelis Kfir Levy, Chen Ganon, and the Bulgarian Stoyan Ivanov Bedrov and how victims can participate in the proceedings!
Gal Barak has already been sentenced to several years in prison in Austria for the victims he and his cybercrime organization caused in Austria. He was ordered to pay millions in restitution to the victims, which he did not until today. The public prosecutor’s office in Bamberg had already brought charges against Barak for the victims he caused in Germany. He was to be extradited from prison in Austria to Germany. However, Barak’s lawyers appealed against this, but the European Court of Justice has allowed these new charges in Germany.
It is not yet clear whether charges will also be brought against Gal Barak‘s partners, the Israeli Gery Shalon and the Russian Vladislav Smirnov. Shalon has already pleaded guilty in the US to various cybercrime activities.
In January 2022, Barak Lieutenant Jacki Fitelzon was sentenced to 82 months of prison time.
- The indictment against the Israeli Kfir Levy alleges that he (alongside Gal Barak and his wife Marina Barak) was responsible for the management of the cybercrime organization at the highest level as part of the management of E&G Bulgaria.
- The Israeli Chen Ganon is said to have worked as a retention manager in the organization’s boiler rooms and thus to have been responsible for the fraudulent actions of the boiler room agents he managed.
- The Bulgarian Stoyan Ivanov Bedrov is alleged to have worked as a boiler room agent in Bulgaria under the alias Jan van Berg and to have been responsible for numerous victims.
The public prosecutor’s office expressly states that numerous other persons at various hierarchical levels of the cybercrime organization are still under investigation. Further charges can, therefore, be expected.
The E&G Bulgaria Case
As a cybercrime organization, E&G Bulgaria was involved in the binary options and CFD sector between 2016 and 2019, inflicting financial harm on over 100,000 victims globally by defrauding them of more than €200 million. The key figures orchestrating this operation were Israeli national Gal Barak, his Bulgarian spouse Marina Barak, the Georgian-born Gery Shalon, who also holds Israeli citizenship, and Russian national Vladislav Smirnov.
They managed boiler rooms across Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Georgia, which were instrumental in running fraudulent schemes like XTraderFX, SafeMarkets, and OptionStarsGlobal.
Barak was arrested in early 2019 in Bulgaria. In 2020, an Austrian court sentenced Gal Barak, the leader of E&G Bulgaria, to a four-year prison term and ordered him to make several million euros in restitution payments. This sentence was notably lenient, especially when compared to the seven-year prison term handed down to his associate Jacki Fitelzon in Germany. While Gal Barak faced at least some consequences for his actions, his wife, Marina Barak, was unexpectedly acquitted in Austria. However, in Germany, prosecutors have identified her as one of the pivotal figures in the cybercrime organization.
The even greater disgrace attributable to the Austrian court is the fact that law enforcement was able to confiscate millions of euros from the accounts of E&G Bulgaria and Gal Barak. These were funds stolen from the victims, but no restitution payments have yet been made to the victims. Barak himself has also not yet made any restitution payments. He is currently in Israel with his wife and their child.
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If you have any information about EG Bulgaria, Gal Barak, and the other members of this cybercrime organization, please share it with us via our whistleblowing system, Whistle42.
