Prosecutors in Cologne have filed an indictment relating to alleged illegal payment collection in support of large-scale online investment fraud. The case materials held by EFRI name Oleg Shvartsman and Rainer Treuer. Proceedings are ongoing, and all parties are presumed innocent.
If your transfers were made to B2G GmbH or P2P GmbH, please contact EFRI with your payment proofs so we can match them to the case file.
Today was another hearing day in court; no judgment has yet been issued.
What the case is about
According to the indictment on file (Cologne, 113 Js 42/21), prosecutors allege that consumer funds were routed via collection accounts connected to B2G GmbH and P2P GmbH (pure shell companies) in 2017 up to end of 2018.. These entities allegedly served as payment collectors for fraudulent online trading platforms that targeted European consumers
Defendants: (presumption of innocence)
Oleg Shvartsman, Russian, Israeli — named in the indictment materials on file with EFRI.
Rainer Treuer, German – named in the indictment materials on file with EFRI.
Charges (as alleged):
According to the Cologne indictment in case 113 Js 42/21 (Band II, pp. 216–312), prosecutors allege that Oleg Shvartsman and Rainer Treuer, acting together with others, organized and operated an unlicensed payment-collection infrastructure that funneled victim deposits from online-investment schemes through accounts held by B2G GmbH and P2P GmbH. The case materials describe how consumer wires were (i) received into company-controlled collection accounts, (ii) pooled and re-labeled as purported e-commerce/consulting revenues, and (iii) rapidly forwarded in bundled transfers to upstream recipients—steps that, in the view of the prosecution, amount to the unauthorized provision of payment services, aiding and abetting large-scale commercial fraud by furnishing the payment rails that enabled the schemes to scale, and circumventing anti-money-laundering safeguards by dispersing funds across multiple accounts and counterparties to frustrate chargebacks and tracing. All persons named remain presumed innocent; no court has ruled on the merits.
:Fraud Ecosystems Using Their Services
According to the Cologne indictment (case 113 Js 42/21) and the attached transaction schedules (Band II), the payment-collection rails attributed to Oleg Shvartsman and Rainer Treuer—operated via B2G GmbH and P2P GmbH—were allegedly used to receive victim deposits for multiple online “broker” ecosystems, including Blue Trading, UniverseMarkets, CentroBanc, Tradeinvest90, Option888, XTraderFX, SafeMarkets, and OptionStarsGlobal, among others listed in the annexes.
Bank accounts attribufed to B2G GmbH (used for more than €30 million victim deposits late 2017 up to end of 2018) were:
DE65 570501200000264697 (Sparkasse Koblenz), DE24 6009 0700 0324 2170 05 (SÜDWESTBANK)
DE36 302201900027169198 (UniCredit Bank – HypoVereinsbank)
DE67 380700590073 7437 00 (Deutsche Bank)
DE50 3716 0087 5585 8680 02 (Kölner Bank)
DE91 3022 0190 0027 3572 61 (UniCredit Bank – HypoVereinsbank)
Bank accounts attributed to P2P GmbH (used for victim deposits) were:
DE94 3905 000 10731 29874 (Sparkasse Aachen) (opened 31. January 2018)
DE 3706236546112860 (Raiffeisenbank Frechen-Hürth eG) (opened 21. February 2018)
After all the German bank accounts were closed due to suspicious acitivities, P2P GmbH opened the following bank accounts with the Dutch BUNQ (from July 2018 up to October 2018):
NL81 BUNQ 2206 8246 55,
NL52 BUNQ 2206 9496 28,
NL15 BUNQ 2206 8243 88
NL46 BUNQ 2206 7272 18
NL55 BUNQ 2207 1010 88
NL89 BUNQ 2031 7689 99
NL47 BUNQ 2031 7695 61.
What EFRI is doing:
As money has been frozen for both companies on the different bank accounts we represent our members in the claim process for the refunds:
For P2P GmbH, the German prosecutor already started to onboard refund requests from the victims who have transferred money to the above P2P GmbH accounts (pls read more here).
For B2G GmbH, the refund process has not yet started but we have been in close contact with the German prosecutor for years in this regard (pls read here). We are waiting for more instructions and are onboarding new victims who transferred their money to B2G GmbH bank accounts.
What victims should do now
Collect evidence: bank statements, payment confirmations, and any emails/chats with deposit instructions.
Contact EFRI: include “Cologne Case 113 Js 42/21” in the subject line and attach your documents.
We match & advise: we’ll match your transfers to the accounts listed in the indictmentand advise next steps.
EFRI’s Position
While we welcome that prosecutors in Cologne have finally brought formal charges—after nearly eight years of investigation—we must express our disappointment that, based on the indictment currently available, no charges of professional money laundering (§ 261 StGB) have been filed against the defendants.
Given the documented transaction volumes and the systematic handling of victim funds through B2G GmbH and P2P GmbH, one might have expected a closer legal examination of whether the alleged conduct meets the threshold for professional or habitual money laundering.
EFRI fully respects prosecutorial discretion and recognizes that such determinations depend on evidence and complex legal criteria. Nevertheless, considering the central role of payment intermediaries in enabling large-scale online fraud, EFRI believes that money-laundering liability must be examined more broadly to ensure accountability throughout the entire payment chain.
With Europol repeatedly highlighting the phenomenon of “money-laundering-as-a-service”, the limited scope of the Cologne indictment—focused merely on unlicensed payment services—feels deeply inadequate in the face of the documented harm to thousands of European consumers.
