We have been covering the cybercrime activities of the Wolf of Sofia, Gal BARAK, and its partners Marina Barak (previously Marina ANDREEVA), Gery SHALON, and Vladislav SMIRNOV since 2018. Our reporting was instrumental in breaking up this cybercrime organization. As a result, gal Barak was arrested in early 2019 and sentenced to four years in prison in September 2020 for investment fraud and money laundering. In addition, his wife Marina is currently on trial. The Binex Group was a centerpiece of their organization to launder money stolen from scam victims.
People and structure of the BINEX Group
The Ukrainian Leonid OLSHEVSKYI officially manages the BINEX Group. He is the managing director and shareholder of both the Czech Dreamspay Technologies s.r.o. d/b/a DreamsPay and the Bulgarian BINEX EOOD. According to the information available to us, however, the 67-year-old Leonid is only the frontman.
In fact, it is the Israeli Gery SHALON, the Russian Vladislav SMIRNOV, and the Israeli Gal BARAK, who lives in Sofia, who used to be the beneficial owners of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria of which Binex Group was a part of. They also controlled TRADOLOGIC; a software company used to develop binary options & trading solutions. The UK-based BINEX Group LP is owned by the two Belize-based companies, HOKKAIDO INVEST and OKINAWA HOLDINGS; both companies are associated with other questionable ventures (see UK Companies House). Leonid OLSHEVSKYI manages the company itself. Its domain www.binexgroup.com has been registered via Moscow.
According to reports from people close to the BINEX Group, SHALON is pulling the strings from New York. He cannot leave the USA because of his legal problems. The financial transactions of the BINEX Group are apparently taken care of by Marina ANDREEVA.
Expanding fraud to new horizons
Instead of discontinuing business given the ban on binary options, the BINEX Group is expanding with increasingly audacious methods.
For example, the BINEX Group has recently launched many new illegal trading platforms where customers are lied to about the nature of the business. On most of these new trading platforms, customers are led to believe that the business is regulated (licensed). To this end, it is stated on the pages that they would carry out their activities through the licensed Bulgarian financial services provider Finex Ltd. However, this is denied when asked by Finex Ltd.
By falsely claiming to work with a licensed partner, the BINEX Group gains access to the banking system, receives the Merchant Identification Number (MID), and can freely collect funds from customers via unregulated and illegal platforms.
The mass-produced fraud
Gery SHALON, Vladislav SMIRNOV, and Gal BARAK controlled the entire value chain around the online sale of unregulated and/or illegal financial products. From software and platforms to boiler rooms and payment services, the three are able to offer everything from a single source. They are ready for mass production and that’s what they do.
When creating trading platforms, they don’t even bother to give them an identity anymore or brand it at all. All their platforms look quite similar, have similar domains and names. These are copy & paste mass-produced sites. The domains were registered via Panama or Moscow.
Behind the platforms, the usual boiler rooms in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Serbia, etc. perform their fraudulent activities. And of course, there are also the same payment service providers around SMIRNOV’s Dreamspay. Fraud against clients is being carried out more audaciously than mass production.
