The good news first. This story has “Netflix potential”. FinTelegram and the FinTelegram team have been threatened by the Israeli scammers for months now with DDOS attacks and lawsuits. And kill threats. Gal Barak, the Israeli owner, and manager of the boiler room operator E&G Bulgaria and operator of broker scams like XTraderFX, SafeMarkets, OptionStarsGlobal or CryptoPoint has ordered the murder of the publisher of FinTelegram after a bribe of €5 million did not work. The authorities are investigating this matter and taking these threats seriously.
The attempted bribery
It all started when Gal Barak contacted the editor of FinTelegram through his Israeli lawyer in January 2019. A meeting was organized in Vienna. Gal Barak wanted to clarify the misunderstandings and make sure that FinTelegram had all the information.
The meeting has been prepared. The meeting was recorded and accompanied by undercover agents. At this meeting, Gal Barak did not only offer €5 million, but also admitted that he is the operator of XTraderFX and the other scams. He implicitly confirmed the respective FinTelegram reports. He has even stated that the millions will be organized through his partners Gery Shalon and Vladislav Smirnov which would ensure that the money would be “laundered money”. Everything has been recorded.
EU arrest warrant and kill order
Shortly afterward, an EU arrest warrant was issued against Gal Barak and Uwe Lenhoff. Not only because of this meeting, but also because of months of negotiations and the collaboration of some former partners who were able to prove in every detail that Barak has stolen millions a year from small investors. It’s all documented.
Gal Barak was arrested in Sofia and awaits extradition to Austria. His partner Uwe Lenhoff was arrested in Austria and was extradited to Germany. Austria wants Barak to be extradited from Bulgaria to Austria. His partner Marina Andreeva, like Uwe Lenhoff, is one of the suspects in this crime. We know from documentation available to us that she is the CFO of these schemes and directly responsible for the loss of tens of millions of retail investors. She has ordered the banktransfers, coordinated the money laundering and contributed to the misery of many retail investors. We have all the WhatsApp messages, phone logs, notary deeds, and bank statements.
Barak defends himself against this extradition with the most expensive lawyers in Bulgaria and Austria. We learned that in Israel some of the more ethically-acting lawyers by now refuse to work for binary option fraudsters knowing what immense harm the fraudsters are bringing to European retail investors.
The Austrian lawyers Stefan Huber and Peter
By the meantime, the victims are still spammed with calls and emails telling them about new great trading possibilities and about great possibilities to recover their losses – they just have to pay another several thousand euros to the fraudsters. New fraudulent trading websites are set up on a daily basis and based on some rumors Gal Barak is again busy in defrauding people – as a matter of
The Gal Barak victims
In the lawyer’s letter to the hosters of FinTelegram, Gal Barak and Marina Andreeva deny that they are behind the fraudulent broker scams like XTraderFX. Interesting, because FinTelegram and EFRI have communicated about it with Gal Barak in January 2019. In this communication, he confirmed that he is the operator of XTraderFX and that he would like to compensate all victims who have contacted EFI.
This WhatsApp communication took place after the face-to-face meeting. We explicitly asked Gal Barak if we could tell the victims of XTraderFX that he would compensate them. And he confirms it.
No reporting requested by authorities
FinTelegram was requested by the authorities not to report the details of the investigation, the death threats, and other findings. That’s what we’ve been sticking to until now. But if FinTelegram is threatened directly, we are no longer bound by this agreement.
In this respect, we will bring more details about the case of Gal Barak, Marina Andreeva and their criminal organization in the next few days.
Good News and Netflix Script
Here is the good news for the readers of FinTelegram. We have – as already mentioned weeks ago on FinTelegram – distributed our website through some hosting companies. We are aware that scammers like Gal Barak and Marina Andreeva have the means to buy a CHSH office.
The irony here is that Gal Barak refers to the rights that he and his partner Marina Andreeva deny each of their investor victims-clients. The protection of privacy and the accuracy of the information. Well, we can promise that FinTelegram will continue to report honestly, openly and fearlessly.
