Mikheil Biniashvili, 50, a Georgian citizen, was indicted on Wednesday by the Bamberg Prosecutor's Office in the state of Bavaria, considered the head of an international fraud network, known as the Milton Group, which allegedly defrauded more than 1,000 citizens in German-speaking European countries through fictitious investments.
Biniashvili is accused of creating a series of call centers involved in financial fraud in Albania, Georgia, North Macedonia and Ukraine, between 2014–2022. Employees in these call centers deceived clients into investing large sums of money on online platforms for trading a wide range of financial instruments, convincing them that the latter were golden profit opportunities.
“The deceived investors were often lured in through deceptive advertising campaigns involving well-known public figures such as actors and politicians,” the Bamberg prosecutor’s office said in a press release. “The invested capital was usually completely lost,” it added.
According to German authorities, Biniashvili is suspected of having managed a call center in Tirana from late 2014 to May 2019, employing around 600 people at the peak of activity.
This center has defrauded at least 180 people in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, causing total damages of around 8 million euros, through 28 investment platforms.
However, German prosecutors emphasize that the real losses are several times higher and that in the period of several months from January 2018 to May 2019 alone, they amount to almost 10 million euros in Germany and almost 50 million euros globally.
In Albania, Biniashvili – also known by the nickname Mishka – collaborated closely with former Defense Ministry advisor Amant Josifi, who has been indicted by Spanish authorities and is suspected of hiding in Dubai.
Biniashvili is also accused of developing fraudulent cybertrading software called PumaTS in 2017 and 2018, which he initially used in his call center and then, from May 2019 until the November 2022 raid, distributed to other operators.
According to the indictment filed by the Bamberg Public Prosecutor's Office, around 400 fraudulent platforms were operated by customers using this software. The defendant is also suspected of providing other services to fraudulent call centers, including helping to set up shell companies.
In this way, Biniashvili is suspected of having contributed to the fraud of 540 people in German-speaking countries, with a total damage of around 44 million euros.
However, the real amount of the fraud is suspected to be much larger, as seized accounting records suggest total losses on a global scale of at least 130 million euros for the period from February 2019 to December 2020.
Just one victim from Austria lost more than 11 million euros within a seven-month period on the fake investment website “CryptoKartal”.
Biniashvili was arrested in Armenia in August 2023 and extradited to Germany in May 2024. The Bavarian Central Office for Cybercrime accuses the defendant of causing a total of financial damages of around 52 million euros, documented in criminal indictments, as well as at least 180 million euros in damages from unreported criminal activities worldwide.
He is suspected of personally benefiting from these crimes to the tune of around 29 million euros. Biniashvili is currently facing charges of two counts of organised commercial fraud. German law provides for a prison sentence of between one and ten years for each of these offences. /BIRN/
