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!
German prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Chen Ganon last year. The arrest warrant was suspended on bail. There is already an indictment and the trial will follow shortly. Ganon was one of the lieutenants of convicted cybercrime mastermind Gal Barak. As the manager in charge of the SafeMarkets scam Ganon was responsible for thousands of victims worldwide from whom millions were stolen. Ganon ran the boiler room behind SafeMarkets in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The news is actually not really new anymore. The Israeli Chen Ganon was arrested in Cyprus a few weeks ago at the request of the German public prosecutor's office. Ganon was one of the managers in Gal Barak's cybercrime organization. He was responsible for the broker scam SafeMarkets and has worked in the boiler rooms in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. We spoke with Ganon several times in 2018, and he confirmed the allegations against Gal Barak and E&G Bulgaria.
Chen Ganon was one of the former lieutenants of the convicted principal of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria, Gal Barak. He was the manager in charge of the broker scam SafeMarkets and has managed the boiler rooms in Belgrade and Sarajevo. Until recently, only the Austrian law enforcement prosecuted Ganon. Now the Bamberg prosecutor's office also prosecutes Ganon in Germany.
The sentence was even a bit harder than we expected. On January 12, 2022, the verdict against the Israeli citizen Jacki Fitelzon was handed down in the court in Munich. The Israeli was one of the co-conspirators of Gal Barak, the so-called Wolf of Sofia. Fitelzon had pleaded guilty to the charges and has now been sentenced to 82 months in prison for commercial and gang fraud. It was also confiscated €760,000. The sentence is not yet final. Fitelzon asked to be transferred to a rehab facility, which the court ordered!
In September 2020, an Austrian court sentenced Gal Barak, the Wolf of Sofia, to four years in prison for investment fraud and money laundering. He was recently released on parole and is currently staying in Israel, where he gave an interesting interview to Calcalist in August 2021. He spoke openly about the fraud and manipulation with his scam brands XtraderFX, OptionStarsGlobal, SafeMarkets, and Golden Markets. According to Barak, everyone in the organization was aware of the fraud.
The trial of Israeli citizen Tal-Jacki Fitelzon is currently underway in Munich. He was one of Gal Barak's lieutenants in his cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria. Three former boiler room employees of E&G Bulgaria had already been sentenced to 33, 48, and 54 months in prison in Germany. According to one of the responsible public prosecutors, Bavaria-based Nino Goldbeck, some 30 suspected cybercrime activists sit currently in prisons in pre-trial detention worldwide at the request of German and Austrian law enforcement.
To be exact, the prosecutors filed charges against the individuals behind the illegal payment processor B2G. We have reported extensively in recent years about the Cologne registered B2G GmbH and its principals, the German Rainer Treuer and former Russian secret agent Oleg Shvartsman. B2G was one of the very big notorious German laundromats and scam facilitators in the binary option era. Among others, they laundered money for Gal Barak and E&G Bulgaria and dozens of other scams.
Maor Sioni has referred to Gal Barak's cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria as his family. In proper mafia parlance. Sioni was one of the family's executives. Another executive, Tal-Jacki Fitelzon is currently standing trial in Munich, Germany. The indictment accuses him of being a ringleader of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria, which allegedly defrauded tens of thousands of consumers worldwide out of more than €200 million with its scams. Jacki has already pleaded guilty to this charge as a ringleader of the Mafia family.
This is perhaps not too good news for the German regulator. Fibonatix, founded by the Israeli Tal Miller, is a notorious high-risk payment processor. It has been facilitating dozens of broker scams. Fibonatix was also one of the payment processors of Gal Barak's cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria. Barak confirmed that in addition to Payvision, Fibonatix was laundering stolen funds. Fibonatix, regulated as a payment institution by the FCA since 2018, announced the opening of an office in Berlin. It plans to serve the put a specific focus on the DACH region!