Konstantin Ignatov, the CEO of OneCoin Ltd and his sister Ruja Ignatova, known as “the Cryptoqueen,” are accused of misleading investors with promises of huge returns with a minimal risk.
According to the US Prosecutors OneCoin, which is still in business with more than 3 million members, has been run like a pyramid – OneCoin members were recruiting new members to buy cryptocurrency packages in exchange of commissions.
The 1,2 billion USD investor money that are located until now have been laundered through 21 countries, the prosecutors also said.
For the two year period ended in September 2016 OneCoin records show profit of 2.23 billion EUR on sales of 3.35 billion EUR.
Watched this on the news. It’s insane! I wonder how they made so many people believe and invest in this company. Obviously, after the Bitcoin historical rise, people thought that this situation will happen again with all the other cryptocurrencies, which facilitates scammers so much.
thank you for this article mate. this is why i do not think i will ever invest in crypto currencies. they are just too risky and questionable if you ask me.
They had some very aggressive viral advertising campaigns in the past from what I understand.Combine it with people’s ignorance and greed and you get the perfect storm that led to this.
The defendants created a multi-million dollar “cryptocurrency” company based entirely on lies and deceptions. They promised great returns and minimal risk, but, as was said, this business was a pyramid scheme based on smoke and mirrors rather than zeros and ones.
@mlawson71 From what I’ve heard they bought several mansions, cars, not sure if there is a jet as well. And used to throw some lavish parties, the rest should be in offshore banks…how typical. “The Cryptoqueen” is still missing.
The Singapore Police said in a statement that “The promotional tokens could be used to ‘mine’ for OneCoins. Participants who brought in new participants were also entitled to overriding commissions in contravention of the Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling Prohibition Act.”
Once again some russian names associated with something bad, sorry for making assumptions. But anyway I find it very hard to believe that you can launder few billions of money and go like unnoticed. Some bank will ask questions about that really. “Huge returns with minimal risks” ))))
I need to refer to some negative comments about crypto currencies due to this case. I dont think that it is related to cryptos as such, but more to human nature. Remember that schemes and money laundering began with fiat money not with crypto. I would say that this is “old school” not anything new
Exactly has nothing to do with crypto necessarily. Doing illegal tactics for illicit gains has been happening since the beginning of time. Whether it was rice trading in Asia or the Antwerp stock exchange in Belgium. Humans will participate in fraudulent activities for money if they figure they can create a system that hoodwinks their investors.
