OneCoin co-founder pleads guilty. “Cryptoqueen” still wanted
As a rule, it is a bad sign when you call your investors “idiots” and your coin – “trashy”. Unless you are running a Ponzi Scheme like Karl Greenwood and Ruja Ignatova, the co-founders of OneCoin, with Greenwood pleading guilty to three counts.
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Author: Lesia Dubenko
The co-founder of OneCoin Karl Greenwood, a citizen of Sweden and the U.K. who was extradited to the U.S. in 2018, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering on Friday.
He admitted to carrying out one of the largest financial scams ever.
According to the prosecutors, OneCoin was conceived as a scam in 2014 and served as a pyramid scheme with a “unique token”, generating $4 billion in revenue, with Greenwood allegedly describing those who believed and invested in his project as “idiots.”
In their internal messages, they also openly referred to OneCoin as a “trashy coin.”
OneCoin operated as an MLM network through which members received commissions for recruiting others to purchase cryptocurrency packages. This MLM structure influenced the rapid growth of the OneCoin member network
the statement by the U.S. authorities reads.
Karl Sebastian Greenwood operated one of the largest international fraud schemes ever perpetrated
aid Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Greenwood and his co-conspirators, including fugitive Ruja Ignatova, conned unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars, claiming that OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer.
While Greenwood is now facing up to 60 years in prison on three counts, sentencing before Judge Ramos is scheduled for April 5, 2023, his accomplice Ruja Ignatova, dubbed the “CryptoQueen,” remains on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted list, with the agency offering a reward of $100,000 for information leading to her arrest.
Williams said that the authorities are serious about punishing all the scammers, noting that “we are coming after all those who seek to exploit the cryptocurrency ecosystem through fraud, no matter how big or sophisticated you are.”
In November, GNcrypto reported on the intricacy of the OneCoin case, and the fact that many funds appear to be missing.
The Bulgarian Security Service also allegedly leaked information to Ignatova about the progress of the investigation against her. And this information, in turn, was leaked by Interpol.
Ponzi schemes are nothing new in the crypto or financial world. One of the most memorable cases is Bitconnect, with one genuinely happy investor Carlos Matos taking to the scene and screaming “Bitconneeeeect.”
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