Gal Barak and the E&G Bulgaria Operation
In September 2020, Israeli national Gal Barak was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay millions in restitution for investment fraud and money laundering during the Vienna Cybercrime Trials. Barak, who also faces charges in Germany, was the head of the notorious cybercrime group E&G Bulgaria, which operated fraudulent broker sites such as:
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XtraderFX
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SafeMarkets
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Golden Markets
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OptionStarsGlobal
Two critical partners enabled this network:
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Payvision, which served as the main payment processor
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PandaTS, a white-label trading software provider that Barak claims functioned similarly to SpotOption, as alleged in the U.S. SEC’s fraud complaint
Calls for Office Raids
Referencing the Yukom case—which involved Yossi Herzog, Kobi Cohen, and Lee Elbaz—where the FBI raided offices in Israel in 2018, Barak’s legal team in the Vienna trials pushed for similar actions.
They formally requested that authorities secure data from PandaTS offices in Israel and Cyprus, essentially advocating for a search and seizure operation.
White Label Deception: The Broker Facade
According to the U.S. SEC’s complaint, SpotOption wasn’t just a tech provider—it was an integrated part of the broker scam, acting as both platform and counterparty. The scheme operated under a model where:
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SpotOption contracted with “partners” to promote financial products
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Clients unknowingly traded against the platform itself
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The platform and its partners profited directly from user losses
Gal Barak argues PandaTS functions the same way. European investigators now appear to support this interpretation, identifying PandaTS as the operational core behind Barak’s scams and others across the binary options space.
Barak’s Defense and PandaTS’s Alleged Role
Barak claimed that E&G Bulgaria was merely a white-label front, responsible only for building the web interfaces of the scam brands. He accused Maor Lahav and PandaTS of controlling:
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The broker and trading infrastructure
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Clearing operations
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Financial transaction handling
Barak insisted that all transfers via payment processors like Payvision were initiated and approved through PandaTS, with transaction records held exclusively by PandaTS and Payvision.
According to Barak: “I just built the websites.”
According to the court: “Nice try—but no.”
Ultimately, the court rejected Barak’s attempt to distance himself. He admitted partial guilt and effectively identified PandaTS and its founder Maor Lahav as key perpetrators, with Payvision aiding and abetting the operation.
The Tradologic Chapter
Before shifting to PandaTS in 2018, Gal Barak, along with Gery Shalon, Vladislav Smirnov, Uwe Lenhoff, and Ilan Tzorya, ran a massive white-label platform called Tradologic. At its peak in 2017, Tradologic claimed to have over 240 white-label clients.
But internal disputes among shareholders in 2018 led Barak to abandon Tradologic in favor of PandaTS.
Notably, Tradologic and those behind it are also being prosecuted in the Vienna Cybercrime Trials.
PandaTS Still Active
Unlike SpotOption—founded by Pini Peter and offline since 2018—PandaTS, operated by Maor Lahav, is still active and reportedly linked to ongoing scams such as:
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Brokerz
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Tradixa
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Mayfair Exchange
What Comes Next
Authorities across Europe and the U.S. are increasingly targeting not just the operators of scam brands, but also the platform providers powering them. Investigations are currently underway against:
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PandaTS
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Tradologic
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Their executives and affiliated entities
In the U.S., enforcement has focused primarily on SpotOption, while European prosecutors are preparing cases that could soon lead to formal charges against PandaTS.
The crackdown on infrastructure providers marks a critical turning point in holding cybercriminal ecosystems accountable.