The boiler room scene in Belgrade, the so-called Manhattan of the Balkans, is still vibrant. One of the largest and most notorious boiler room operators is Parogan DOO (www.parogan.com), owned by the Cyprus citizen Nikos Andreou, and managed by the former lawyer and Serbian citizen Max-Sebastian Winterfeldt. Nikos Andreou is also the only shareholder of Olympus Prime DOO, another boiler room operator in Belgrade. While the latter is still active, Parogan DOO is in liquidation.
Vanishing!
Parogan‘s LinkedIn page has also already disappeared. On the website, the links to Facebook and Twitter no longer work either. The company and its web presences will soon disappear into the darkness of the web. And with it the traces to hundreds of millions of losses of victims attacked by Parogan boiler rooms. Or so they might think!
Well-connected
Parogan, the well-connected Serbian lawyer Max-Sebastian Winterfeldt (LinkedIn) serves as a director. Parogan is the leading boiler room in Belgrade and has a long tradition of running scams (see LinkedIn ad left). Winterfeldt is known in Belgrade for his excellent connections to the political establishment. He, too, is connected to the famous Belgrade lawyer Marko Vujosevic, co-founder and shareholder of Global Payment Solutions DOO (GPS). The latter has been one of the money-laundering vehicles of Gal Barak and Uwe Lenhoff. GPS was explicitly named as one of the money-laundering vehicles in the judgment against Gal Barak. Barak was sentenced to several years in prison for investment fraud and money laundering in September 2020.
Preying on German consumers
Paragon was notorious for attacking German consumers via their aggressive boiler room agents. Therefore, in the past, one could find many job ads looking for German-speaking agents. The action days of German law enforcement agents in recent months may have contributed to the company’s liquidation.
We would like to know more about the upcoming disappearance of Parogan. Where will the Boiler Room agents and customers be transferred to? Which customers are currently still being serviced. What are the rumors surrounding the venture?
