While Gal Barak today, August 26, 2020, has another day of proceedings in the Vienna Cybercrime Trials, the forced liquidation of GPay, which had already been ordered by the UK High Court on June 23, 2020, was registered at Companies House. In the public interest based on the investigations of the UK Insolvency Service. A formal act but one with symbolic effect. GPay was one of the main vehicles in the money laundering machine of Gal Barak and its E&G Bulgaria. He is now on trial in Austria for investment fraud and money laundering.
UK Investigations
The Court Order on the compulsory liquidation was entered into UK Companies House on 25 August 2020 (read our report here). The Bulgarian CEO Georgi Komisarov could not be found by the authorities. The given company address did not exist.
In court, Gal Barak purported not to know the managing director of GPay and not to have had anything to do with the company’s business. This is strange because Barak signed contracts on behalf of GPay and his wife Marina Barak (aka Marina Andreeva) had the power of attorney.
GPay was involved as an illegal payment processor in the many Gal Barak broker scams and collected the funds of the customer victims of scams like XTraderFX, SafeMarkets, Golden Markets, or CryptoPoint. Financial market regulators several regulatory regimes have issued public investor warnings against GPay and these scams. Investigations by the UK Insolvency Service have found 108 victims of Barak Scams in the UK who have lost at least GBP 1.5 million via GPay.
GPay did not defend the public interest petition and the in winding-up the company.
We welcome the court’s decision to wind-up GPay as it will protect anyone else becoming a victim. This scam should also serve as a warning to anyone who conducts trading online …
David Hill, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service (link)
GPay Ltd, trading as XtraderFX, and formerly trading as Cryptopoint, was wound up by the High Court, on 23 June 2020, on a petition presented, in the public interest, by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Payvision didn’t mind
Despite the public warnings and in the knowledge of the illegal activity of GPay, the Dutch ING subsidiary Payvision signed a new agreement with the company before the beginning of 2018. The then Payvision CEO Rudolf Booker was personally acquainted with Barak and his then partner, the suspected online fraudster and scammer Uwe Lenhoff, who died under mysterious circumstances in prison on or around 6 July 2020. Until a few days before his arrest in early 2019, Payvision transferred millions of stolen customer funds to Barak’s companies every month.
Prior to the investigations against Barak and Lenhoff, Rudolf Booker and his co-founders resigned from their posts in April 2020. The court-ordered closure of GPay closes an era of rampant fraud and money laundering. The courts will be busy with this for years to come.
