The Vienna Crime Trials (#VCT) are not an official term but is used by FinTelegram to refer to the various court proceedings surrounding the E&G Bulgaria cybercrime organization. In September 2020, the Israeli citizen Gal Barak was convicted as the organization’s mastermind. He was sentenced to a 4-year prison term, restitution payments, and already seized $2,5 Mio has been declared forfeited. According to the current information, there will be several indictments and more court cases under #VCT. FinTelegram will report on this.
Together with his Bulgarian wife Marina Barak (formerly Marina Andreeva) and a team of mostly Israeli lieutenants, Israeli citizen Gal Barak operated the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria (formerly E&G Finance). Through E&G Bulgaria fraudulent broker scams and illegal boiler rooms were operated in Europe. Through a scam broker platform network, the organization defrauded more than 30,000 customers out of more than €200 million with scam brands such as XtraderFX, SafeMarkets, Golden Markets, and OptionStars (OptionStarsGlobal), according to a former partner.
An EU arrest warrant was issued against Gal Barak and his partner Uwe Lenhoff in early 2019. He was initially arrested in Bulgaria and extradited to Austria in the fall of 2019. There he was charged with investment fraud and money laundering. In early September 2020, Barak was found guilty as charged by the court. He was sentenced to four years in prison, restitution payments to all Austrian victims, and the already seized €2.5 million have been declared forfeited.
Gal Barak is currently in custody in Austria. The verdict has been available in writing for several days. The judge stated in his reasoning that Gal Barak was the mastermind of a cybercrime organization and organized the fraud against small investors via his wife Marina Barak, his accomplices, and employees and managed it as CEO. The written verdict can be received from FinTelegram here:
