Since its inception in 2018, the NGO European Fund Recovery Initiative (EFRI) has filed several crucial money-laundering complaints against banks and payment processors with the competent authorities in various jurisdictions. Without the intentional or negligent facilitation by these institutions, investment fraud and scams would not be possible in the first place. EFRI has now filed a money laundering complaint against Deutsche Handelsbank and the PPRO Group along with extensive evidence. Both institutions are part of the criminal files of the Vienna Cybercrime Trials (#VCT).
Vienna Cybercrime Trials
The so-called #VCT are perhaps the most extensive cybercrime court cases in the EU to date. There are also spin-off investigations and prosecutions in Germany and other EU countries. The #VCT was made possible by the comprehensive information of a whistleblower who provided insider information about the international broker scam scene and their facilitating banks and payment processors.
In the first #VCT trial, the Israeli Gal Barak was sentenced in September 2020 to four years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution payments for investment fraud via scam broker sites and money laundering. The sentence was relatively moderate because of his confession and his cooperation with law enforcement agents. Barak’s partner, the German Uwe Lenhoff, was about to be indicted when he was found dead in his prison cell in July 2020. Cause of death unknown.
Money-laundering for scammers
In a joint effort with law enforcement agents and scam victims, EFRI has been able to establish a comprehensive file on scam-facilitating banks and payment processors. Based on the extensive documentation EFRI filed a money-laundering complaint against Deutsche Handelsbank and the PPRO Group with the German regulator BaFin and the public prosecutors’ office in Munich, Germany.
The FCA-regulated PPRO Group itself and companies from the cybercrime organization of Barak and Lenhoff such as Online Prospect Ltd and Tiberg Limited and many more had their bank accounts with the Deutsche Handelsbank. The scammers have used these bank accounts to receive and process money from defrauded scam victims and route it to themselves and their co-conspirators.
About PPRO Group
The PPRO Group was founded by former Wirecard manager Tobias Schreyer together with his partner Philipp Nieland. The group consists of more than a dozen companies in various jurisdictions. The holding company of the PPRO Group has its headquarters in Munich, Germany. The group has a special focus on South America where it has subsidiaries from Mexico to Peru.
With PPRO Financial Ltd, the Group has an FCA-regulated e-money institution (EMI) which also conducts its business through the FCA-regulated EMI agent Mr. Cash Wallet Solutions Ltd in Gibraltar. The latter does not operate its own website. The domain www.theppro.com specified on the FCA profile page refers to the group domain www.ppro.com.
