Israeli cybercrime mastermind Gal Barak was sentenced in Vienna in September 2020 to four years imprisonment for investment fraud and money laundering. In 2021, Gal Barak was to be extradited from the Austrian prison to Germany because he was also to be charged there. His lawyer has appealed against this, invoking the principle of ne bis in idem. Today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that Gal Barak can be charged in Germany.
Gal Barak was paroled in 2021 and has resided in Israel with his wife and child. He is likely to face a European arrest warrant in the near future. He and his friends (pictured above) are allegedly still in the scam business.
Some of Barak’s former accomplices, such as Jacki Fitelzon, have already been convicted in Germany and received much longer prison sentences than their boss in Austria. Former Lieutenant Chen Ganon has also been charged in Germany. They all worked for Gal Barak and his E&G Bulgaria cybercrime organization and ran broker scams like XTraderFX, SafeMarkets, OptionStars, OptionStarsGlobal, or CryptoPoint. In total, they allegedly stole more than €200 million from tens of thousands of consumers.
In a landmark ruling, the CJEU has ruled that the ne bis in idem principle can only apply if it is the same facts that are charged in Austria and Germany. However, since in the Austrian trial, only the fraudulent acts against Austrian victims were charged, and in Germany, the fraudulent acts against German victims were charged, it is not the same facts. Therefore, the principle ne bis in idem cannot be applied. It is a similar act, the CJEU said but not the same facts. This is insufficient for the “idem” requirement to be considered fulfilled.
With this landmark ruling of the European Court of Justice, the way is now clear for the indictment of Gal Barak in Germany and other jurisdictions where his former cybercrime organization has victims.
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