Bamberg/Nuremberg (dpa/lby) - The Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria has brought charges against two suspected leading members of an international gang of investment fraudsters. The two 28-year-old and 31-year-old suspects are accused of commercial and gang fraud and participation in a criminal organization as a ringleader, as the Bamberg public prosecutor responsible for the central office announced on Monday. An economic crimes chamber of the regional court in Nuremberg must now decide whether there will be a trial.
From mid-2017 and mid-2020, respectively, until their arrest in July 2021, the two accused were said to have held high-level positions in a group that had come together to engage in fraudulent cyber-trading. According to the indictment, they should be responsible for damage of more than 14 million euros or more than 8 million euros. They are said to have put amounts in the six-figure range in their own pockets.
In cyber trading, scammers lure people on professionally made online platforms with allegedly profitable investment products. According to investigations by the Cybercrime Central Office, the group operated the fraudulent trading platforms Alpha Financial Group, Zurich Financial Group and Geneva Capital Group, among others, in parallel until July 2021.
The two men, along with other suspected perpetrators, were arrested in the Bulgarian capital Sofia in 2021 and extradited to Germany. According to the public prosecutor, two accomplices were sentenced to several years in prison in two separate trials in May and August.
