Gal Barak, the alleged Israeli principal of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria had to stand trial again today in court in Vienna today. He is accused of operating several broker scams for investment fraud and money laundering. He can not understand this at all, he told the court today. Thousands of other such scams are online and nobody else but him is accused he complained. Barak made a rather bizarre confession and finally, the written testimony of a former retention manager was read. Unfortunately, this witness died mysteriously shortly after his testimony.
I am a victim, stupid!
It is now no longer a secret that the defense strategy of Gal Barak is based on the pretense that he does not see himself as the perpetrator or let alone principal of the E&G Bulgaria cybercrime organization, but as a victim and misunderstood. Yes, it is true, he says, that his wife Marina Barak (aka Marina Andreeva) had a Power of Attorneys (PoA) for E&G Bulgaria and other scheme entities and managed the finances. But she did that for others, certainly not for him, Barak.
He actually complained in court that he, of all people, would be accused of operating scams. Thousands of other scams are operated by other perpetrators but they are not charged. This is unfair, isn’t it?
Already in the morning session, Barak had made a confession. Well, it was not really a confession. Rather another attempt to blame others and exculpate himself. He admitted that with the white label broker solution Tradologic, which he owns and was a director of, customers were cheated via a manipulated software. Yes, he, Barak, would have known about this manipulation and fraud but could not have done anything. All of this would have been his former partner, who was the actual principal and the ultimate perpetrator. His own (new) scams such as XtraderFX, SafeMarkets, or Golden Markets were not operated with Tradologic but since 2017 with the competing software PandaTS from Maor Lahav.
So Barak confessed that he knew about the fraud of others but could neither have cooperated nor done anything about it himself. So he was not the perpetrator, but at best he had knowledge. In this respect, he is the wrongly accused and a victim.
The boiler room lie
Barak had nothing to do with the boiler rooms he claimed. Under no circumstances. No way. The thing is, however, that a former retention manager with the stage name Alex Mueller massively incriminated Barak and testified to the authorities that Gal Barak himself was present at least twice a week in the boiler room operated by Cactus Marketing DOO in Belgrade, for example. He also testified that customer accounts and transactions were manipulated with the help of special software. The manipulation happened across all platforms and included PandaTS scams such as XTraderFX or OptionStars.
The statements of the witness directly contradicted the statements of Barak in his “confession”, which he had made only a few hours before.
Killing fields
The witness worked as a manager for Barak’s Boiler Rooms in Serbia and Bulgaria. Unfortunately, this witness was found dead in Bulgaria shortly after his statement. The cause of death was cardiac arrest after a drug overdose. What a convenient coincidence for Barak, isn’t it?
In 2019, two former Serbian business partners of Gal Barak filed a criminal complaint with the police purporting that Barak had placed a kill order against them. One of them is a respected lawyer in Belgrade. Both were investors in Barak’s Serbian activities and have confirmed that violent clashes with Gal Barak and his bodyguards have occurred. Barak may seem harmless, his companions are not and neither are his assignments.
A former Bulgarian employee of Barak submitted an affidavit stating that she and her children were threatened to be killed by Barak’s agents if she made statements about E&G Bulgaria to third parties.
This is already the second death in this criminal case. On July 6, 2020, Uwe Lenhoff, suspected accomplice, and partner of Gal Barak was found dead in his prison cell. The cause of death is still unknown or has not been disclosed by the authorities.
Stay tuned. The Vienna Cybercrime Trials develop into an international thriller.
I live in Australia and I am an old age pensioner/widow.
I was grieving the death of my husband when I was trapped by “Randy Neilson” into investing in XTraderFX.
They harassed me for more money and kept ringing at all hours of the night, waking me trying to get more money.
I told them I had none and was told I must have superannuation as it is the law in Australia that all Australians must have superannuation