The first trial in the so-called Veltyo Cybercrime Scheme was held in Saarbruecken, Germany. The defendants were two Kosovans, Betim Tasholli, Azem Spahiu, and the Syrian Mohamad Shaker. Tasholli was the boiler room manager in Pristina, Shaker was responsible for the boiler room in Prague, and Spahiu was responsible for coordinating affiliate marketing around the scam brands Option888, ZoomTrader, TradoVest, or XMarkets. The Court sentenced Azem Spahiu to a 12-year prison term. Tasholli and Shaker are allegedly on the run.
Montenegrin-born lawyer Marko Vujosevic had a thriving law practice in Belgrade until 2020. His law firm participated in the fraudulent binary options industry and procured dozens if not hundreds of work permits for Israeli citizens. With the cybercrime masterminds, Uwe Lenhoff and Gal Barak co-founded the illegal payment processor Global Payments Solutions DOO (GPS) in Podgorica that laundered millions for binary options like Option888 or TradoVest. After a lost defamation claim, Vujosevic's law firm seems to have vanished. Google says it is temporarily closed.
The E&G Bulgaria Cybercrime Scheme is dealt with by German prosecutor Nino Goldbeck in Bamberg. The German prosecutor informed that the boiler room agent Sasa Siler has also been charged for allegedly defrauding German-speaking victims with OptionStarsGlobal, XTraderFX, or Trade Capital. The mastermind behind E&G Bulgaria was the Israeli Gal Barak with his wife Marina Barak and their partners Gery Shalon and Vladislav Smirnov.
The trial against the ringleaders of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria is currently underway in Munich, Germany. Gal Barak was already sentenced to four years in jail in Vienna in Sept 2020. Almost unnoticed, the preparation of charges against several ringleaders of the cybercrime organization around the late Uwe Lenhoff and the Veltyco Group is currently underway in Saarbrücken. Criminal records show that MoneyNetInt was massively involved in Lenhoff's money laundering.
The European Fund Recovery Initiative (EFRI) was founded in 2018 by the auditor and CPA Elfriede Sixt in a joint effort with FinTelegram and lawyers. EFRI represents more than 1,000 scam victims with around 60 million euros damages. Besides assisting victims, EFRI brought criminal charges through lawyers against scammers and their enablers and facilitators. EFRI is probably the most hated institution for the worldwide scammer and cybercrime scene. Elfriede Sixt talks about her experiences in the fight against cybercrime.
In September 2021, the Israeli cybercrime kingpin Gal Barak was sentenced to four years in prison for investment fraud and money laundering in Austria. German prosecutors, led by Nino Goldberg, also want to charge Gal Barak, see him convicted and sentenced to prison. Barak appealed against the indictment; the case is currently before the European Court of Justice. Barak's former boiler room manager Tal-Jacki Fitelzon has already been indicted. Barak's former partner in crime, Uwe Lenhoff, died in prison last year, but his co-conspirators will be indicted. Barak and Lenhoff allegedly produced more than 200,000 victims in Germany!
Amsterdam FinTech entrepreneur Rudolf Booker founded the payment processor Payvision in 2002 and ran it more or less successfully. The business evidently took off in 2015 when Amsterdam real estate investor Dirk-Jan Bakker introduced German cybercrime activist Uwe Lenhoff to Booker. Lenhoff and his partners brought dozens of fraudulent binary options operators to Payvision, where Booker welcomed them with open arms. In 2018, Booker sold Payvision to ING for €360 million, fully packed with high-risk and illegal clients; in April 2020, he and his co-founders left Payvision.
The extent of the damage caused by scam facilitating FinTechs is very clearly shown by the ING subsidiary Payvision. The Dutch Fintech processes some €130 million just for the scams of the two now-imprisoned Uwe Lenhoff (Germany) and Gal Barak (Israel). Thanks to the investigations many sad hypothesis around FinTechs and their role as cybercrime facilitators have been proved by facts and evidence.
Police from Kosovo and Germany conducted a razzia against people and companies in the Veltyco environment in Kosovo. The authorities suspect money laundering and seized documents, bank accounts and properties.