Tag: Tradologic

The Bamberg case against former AirSoft CEO Shay Benhamou could redefine the liability of white-label software providers in cyber-enabled investment fraud. FinTelegram examines where neutral technology ends and criminal participation begins.

In March 2022, the Seychelles Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit involving Oldypak Capital LP and GV Holdings Limited against Tempox Holdings Limited (formerly Tradologic HK Limited), Ilan Tzorya, and DTI Group Inc. This case further implicates the beneficial owners of the plaintiffs, Gery Shalon and Vladislav Smirnov, in the massive cybercrime operation surrounding E&G Bulgaria and Tradologic.

Gery Shalon, the cybercrime mastermind behind the online casino schemes, pump-and-dump schemes, and one of the partners of Gal Barak, returned to Israel after being allowed to leave US custody two years ago, his father Shota Shalelashvili allegedly said in an interview broadcast in the Republic of Georgia. Shalon was extradited from Israel in 2015 and faced 23 counts and potentially decades in prison. He also was accused of running global money-laundering operations.

In Austria, another trial in the environment of Israeli Gal Barak's cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria will begin in a few weeks. Barak was sentenced in 2020 for investment fraud and money laundering to several years of imprisonment and about €4 million in restitution payments that he has not paid yet. Criminal records show that Gal Barak, his wife, Marina Barak, and his partners, Gery Shalon and Vladislav Smirnov, earned around €38 million between 2017 and 2019 alone.

Novox Capital, once a CySEC-regulated company, operated some "regulated" binary options brands. Additionally, Novox provided services to numerous scam schemes and offered them a regulatory umbrella: Option888 of Uwe Lenhoff, OptionStars of Gal Barak, and many others. The beneficial owners of the Novox Group were the cousins' Shay Hillel and Yehoram Hillel. They were also the main shareholders of the broker software company Tradologic. Novox and the Hillels are also at the center of the various trials.

More trials against binary options scam operators or their facilitators coming up in the first half of 2023. The former beneficial owners of the (then) CySEC-regulated Novox Capital Ltd are also in the spotlight: the Israelis Shay Hillel, Yehoram Hillel, and their partner and frontman Israel Bash. They are currently not charged however the prosecution alleges that their Novox Capital had been massively involved in running and facilitating vast binary options scams. Gal Barak and his cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria were a close partner and client of Novox Capital.

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.

Update: we have been informed that Ben Gettemans was not only the personal driver of Gal Barak but also...

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.

Yes, it's true. The GetFinancial scam wasn't the biggest scam of the cybercrime organization that German, Austrian and Israeli law enforcement cracked down on this week. During a law enforcement day in Tel Aviv, 20 people were temporarily detained and questioned. Four individuals are reported to remain in custody and be extradited to Germany. In connection with this cybercrime organization, the name of Israeli lawyer David Bar-El is repeatedly mentioned. Another update with more names.

Simona Weinglass provided an update on the GetFinancial Case and the respective law enforcement actions in Israel, which have been initiated by German prosecutors. Allegedly, 15 people have been questioned by the police, four are said to be extradited to Germany. Court documents show that the cybercrime organization ran the scams GetFinancial, IntegraOption, SolidCFD, TradeSolid, BitCapitalMarkets, MyCoinbanking, Procapitalmarkets, Profitstrade, FXPace, Acceptrade, and Gainfintech using the platforms SpotOption and Tradologic.