Comparable horrors happened to me in Germany with a startup from Munich and one from Berlin. Only that my team and me were freelancers and basically had no way to sue them without substantial investment in years of lawyer wages :(. Since that time I learned a lot and it helped me identify and turn down criminal companies and only work with fantastic (and successful) German startups today. I might write my experiences and lessons learned down in a similar article, so other’s don’t have to share our fate. Thanks for sharing yours!

Update: Here is the article I promised — https://medium.com/p/89971451aed7