Co-Conspirators And Lieutenants Of The Lenhoff-Barak Cybercrime Organization

The cybercrime organization of Uwe Lenhoff and Gal Barak with their illegal broker schemes would not have been possible without the contribution of co-conspirators. The two were arrested in the course of international police actions in February 2019 (FinTelegram article here). Lenhoff is currently in custody in Austria, Barak is under house arrest in Sofia for health reasons and is waiting for extradition to Austria. Lenhoff and Barak have operated illegal and fraudulent broker sites such as Option888, Xmarkets, SafeMarkets, XTraderFX or TradoVest.

The Austrian and German consumer protection organizations but also lawyers involved, point out that many retail investors have lost their life-time savings and sometimes their very existence with these fraud schemes. The damage to investors in the EU is expected to amount to over one hundred million euros.

Masterminds And Their Lieutenants

Lenhoff and Barak are the masterminds behind the organization but a number of lieutenants and co-conspirators have knowingly and willfully facilitated the Forex fraud and the cheating of retail investors. In the case of Lenhoff, this was certainly the Veltyco board at the time with Marcel Noordeloos and Hans Dahlgren. Lenhoff also places a corresponding burden on the two in his statements.

But also the Austrian software developer and tech entrepreneur Joachim Kalcher has made his contribution to the development of Lenhoff’s criminal organization. The software technician specializes in the development of payment solutions and has worked for Lenhoff in this area since late 2016 or early 2017. Lenhoff via Veltyco founded two companies in Bulgaria through which Kalcher developed crypto payment solutions for the illegal forex broker schemes. These were the two Bulgarian companies Black Cyan EOOD and Varkasso Ltd (FinTelegram reported about it).

Both Lenhoff with his Winslet Enterprises EOOD and Barak with its E&G Bulgaria (formerly E&G Finance) had their operational headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria. The listed Veltyco Group PLC in the UK was merely kind of Potemkin village for the illegal network behind it. Veltyco was obviously used for fundraising and money laundering purposes.

Long before Lenhoff was arrested, Kalcher, like the other partners, was aware of the illegality of the Lenhoff Veltyco organization, as can be seen from the criminal files. This includes phone protocols from Kalcher and other managers in the Lenhoff-Barak organization. These protocols make it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the people involved were fully aware of the illegality of their organization.

Lieutenants And Fraud Facilitators

In the criminal files, one can read phone protocols. Kalcher, for example, talks to the German Ingo Saager – at that time manager of the Veltyco holding Bet90 Sportwetten – about the criminal nature of the Lenhoff organization ripping off thousands of retail investors! That’s impressive, isn’t it? In their phone discussion, they already assumed that Lenhoff will go to jail for his “Forex Fraud” soon. Kalcher seemed not to be surprised at all. Evidently, he was very well informed about the illegality of the system what can also be explained by the fact that a money laundering complaint charging his cooperation with UWE Lenhoff was filed in early 2017. Kalcher therefore qualifies as a confidant and a contributor to Uwe Lenhoff`s criminal activities.

Especially the payment transaction procedures applied for ripping off retail investors and the subsequent money laundering was of central importance for the Lenhoff organisation. And Kalcher’s solution should further enhance the illicit payment schemes of the Lenhoff organization which Kalcher evidently is aware of.

Co-Perpetrators To Be Held Liabl

If the managers involved, such as Kalcher and Saager, had presented their knowledge to the authorities earlier, many retail investors and Veltyco shareholders would probably not have lost their money. Lenhoff, on the other hand, would not have been able to ramp up his cybercrime organization to such a global extent without the participation of people like Saager and Kalcher. From a criminal law point of view, the Lenhoff-Barak organization is to be seen as a criminal organization and all of its knowingly and willfully contributing members should be held responsible. Joachim Kalcher is currently a suspect in Lenhoff’s criminal proceedings for financial crime, money laundering, and serious commercial fraud. Other perpetrators, on the other hand, are still missing on this list.