German pays second €1 million in bail

LRT reported Monday that a further €1 million has been paid into the Vilnius City District Court’s deposit account as part of the bail set for defendant Vilhelmas German. The payment brings the total bail amount to €2 million.

Giedrius Janonis, a representative of the court, told BNS that the missing amount was paid on Friday after a July 29 ruling extended German’s intensive supervision for another three months from August 16.

The ruling also increased German’s bail from €1 million to €2 million. The first €1 million had previously been paid into the prosecutor’s deposit account.

The court also tightened the conditions of his intensive supervision. German must wear an electronic monitoring device continuously, remain at home from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., except when seeking necessary healthcare services, and must not leave the boundaries of Vilnius.

Under the current conditions, which remain in force until August 16, German is not allowed to leave his home.

German had been held in custody for almost 18 months. Because the law does not allow a person to remain in custody for longer than 18 months, he was released in mid-February under two preventive measures: €1 million bail and intensive supervision with an electronic ankle monitor.

A week ago, the Vilnius City District Court also extended for six months a temporary restriction on the property of Exawatt, a company linked to German.

In the large-scale case, German is accused of belonging to an organised group with Mindaugas Navickas, Alfonsas Ambrazas and Andrius Razma and fraudulently misappropriating cryptocurrency mining equipment worth more than €23 million.

He is also accused of possessing forged identity documents. During searches, investigators found counterfeit Greek, Portuguese and Bulgarian identity documents bearing his photograph in a safe.

The trial, scheduled for mid-July, was postponed until September after companies from Hong Kong and Portugal that are plaintiffs were required to submit additional documents at the request of the defendants’ lawyers.

The criminal case was separated from the pretrial investigation into the Foxpay scandal, in which law enforcement suspects the legalisation of at least €17 million in illegally acquired funds and bribes totalling €100,000. In 2024, prosecutors said the suspected crimes connected with Foxpay included misappropriation of property, theft, large-scale fraud, bribery and money laundering.